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news.US-based Edwards Lifesciences has announced that the patents court in the UK upheld the validity of the company's UK Andersen patent for transcatheter valve technology. Edwards succeeded in having CoreValve's invalidity claims dismissed on all grounds.
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This case was initiated by CoreValve in the UK in September 2007. In response, Edwards counter-sued, claiming infringement of the patent. While the court upheld Edwards’s patent, it found that CoreValve’s specific product design does not infringe. Edwards remains convinced that the product infringes and will consider an appeal of this aspect of the case. The ruling has no effect on sales of the Edwards’s Sapien transcatheter heart valve in the UK or anywhere else.
Separately, Edwards has a lawsuit against CoreValve in the US for infringement of the US Andersen patents, and the Federal Patent Court in Munich, Germany, will rule on the validity of Edwards’s German Andersen patent in early 2009. In October 2008, the District Court of Dusseldorf, Germany, found no infringement of that patent by CoreValve. Edwards has appealed that decision.
Larry Wood, Edwards’s corporate vice president of transcatheter valve replacement, said: While we did not prevail on infringement, we are pleased the court upheld the validity of our UK patent, which strengthens this key patent in the Andersen patent family. This is an important component of Edwards’s intellectual property in transcatheter heart valve technology, and represents one element of our broader leadership strategy.