Article preview from "The Gray Sheet" - June 24, 2013
Patent attorneys suggest lawsuits from firms that buy up device patents purely to pursue litigation, which appears to have occurred recently with Medtronic’s kyphoplasty patents, may become a more common occurrence.
Article preview from "The Gray Sheet" - June 24, 2013
Medtronic Inc.’srecent sale of its kyphoplasty patents to a company that appears focused only on filing lawsuits on intellectual property rather than developing products (pejoratively called a “patent troll”) is a rare occurrence in the device world, but it could become more commonplace, attorneys say.
A company called Orthophoenix LLC filed suit June 5 against six medical device companies alleging infringement of the Kyphon patents. The court documents in the cases state that Medtronic sold the patents to Orthophoenix, associated with IP Navigation Group LLC (IPNav), a “full-service patent monetization” firm.
So-called patent troll suits are a regular feature of the software and Internet sectors, but are not so common for medical devices. Patent attorneys polled by “The Gray Sheet” could not think of a similar occurrence where a device firm has sold off its intellectual property to a patent monetization company to pursue litigation.
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