ZAP Surgical Wins Two More IP Battles with Elekta

ZAP Surgical Systems, a surgical robotics firm, recently won several legal victories amid ongoing patent litigation with Elekta concerning its ZAP-X Gyroscopic Radiosurgery platform.
 
In April 2019, Elekta claimed that ZAP infringed on its patent for a theoretical radiosurgery device that never made it to market. Elekta sought monetary damages—with a three-fold enhancement due to a charge of willful infringement—and an injunction prohibiting ZAP-X’s import, manufacture, use, and sales.
 
In April 2021, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) ruled Elekta’s original infringement allegations weren’t valid. This casted doubt on the bases of the initial claims.
 
ZAP’s next victory arose on September 4, 2023—the German Federal Patent Court in Munich declared Elekta’s European patent for the same theoretical technology invalid. A week later, the U.S. Federal Court of approvals made the final judgment that the claims Elekta made in its patent were unpatentable because of “obviousness”.
 
The contentious ZAP-X radiosurgery device was developed to be a dedicated radiosurgery system. It uses a modern linear accelerator to generate radiation and doesn’t require Cobalt-60 radioactive sources, removing the hefty cost of hosting, sourcing, and regularly replacing volatile radioactive isotopes.
 
ZAP-X is also self-shielded, eliminating the expense needed to construct shielded radiation treatment rooms. Earlier this month, it entered the Chinese market upon gaining NMPA approval.
 
In response to the recent legal victories, Dr. John R. Adler, Jr., Stanford professor of neurosurgery and ZAP’s founder/CEO, told the press, “True innovation is difficult and fraught with failure. Not surprisingly, our legal system is overburdened with frivolous patent lawsuits by companies who have forgotten how to innovate, where the objective may not be to prevail, but to simply outspend, distract and forestall much smaller more thinly capitalized competitors. Who suffers most? Global healthcare systems, and more importantly, patients. No matter, ZAP Surgical remains undeterred in its mission to improve the lives of patients through innovative and cost saving medical technologies, redoubling efforts to provide the ZAP-X platform to medical professionals worldwide.”