Stent War Rages On: Boston Scientific Wins Latest Appeal in Battle with J&J

Boston Scientific Corp. won an appeals court ruling in an infringement case involving four drug-coated stent patents against Johnson & Johnson (J&J).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. upheld a lower-court ruling that the patents owned by J&J’s Cordis Corp. are invalid because an accurate product description was not provided.

Cordis’s patents were for compounds derived from rapamycin, which limits the growth of scar tissue that may cause arteries to narrow. The ruling focused on whether research had been done on derivatives as Cordis claimed.

The case is one of many disputes over stents between the two companies, and stems from a recent lawsuit that sought to prove that Boston Scientific’s Promus stent did not infringe patents. Last year, the company paid J&J $1.73 billion to settle other stent technology patent lawsuits.

It remains to be seen whether the decision may benefit Abbott Laboratories, which is being sued by Cordis over the same technology. The Abbott Park, Ill.-based company manufactures the Xience stent and licenses the Promus stent to Natick, Mass.-based Boston Scientific.

North Plainfield, N.J.-based Cordis is owned by New Brunswick, N.J.-headquartered J&J.