U.S. District Court Upholds Jury Verdict in Favor of Cardiovascular Inventor
NEW YORK–LAWFUEL – The Legal Newswire – In a significant patent infringement victory, Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C. represented Dr. Peter Rentrop, a prominent cardiovascular interventionalist, in his patent litigation dispute with Spectranetics Corporation. Dr. Rentrop sued the medical device company for infringing his patent for a catheter used to deliver laser energy principally for use in cardiovascular intervention surgery. A jury found in favor of Dr. Rentrop and rejected all counter-claims by the defendant.
Judge P. Kevin Castel of U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York upheld the 2006 jury verdict that found that Dr. Rentrop’s patent, U.S. Patent No. 6,673,064 (the “‘064 Patent”), was valid and infringed and that Dr. Rentrop was the sole inventor of that patent and the parent patent, U.S. Patent No. 6,440,125 (the parent). Judge Castel also ruled that Spectranetics failed to meet its burden to show inequitable conduct or an implied-in-law license to use.
The ‘064 Patent is directed to a laser catheter employed to ablate hardened occlusions for use in endovascular surgery. The laser catheter has a tip diameter of less than one millimeter and a tip length of at least one centimeter to provide a catheter tip which is sufficiently flexible to permit it to negotiate narrow arterial bends in coronary vessels while the catheter shaft exhibits a stiffness profile allowing the catheter to be pushed through cardiac vessels to a desired site.
Marv Gittes and Rick Lehrer, Members in Mintz Levin’s Intellectual Property Section, represented Dr. Rentrop.
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