Materialise contends that Nobel Biocare’s manufacture of NobelGuide drilling template violates a Materialise US patent that was issued in 1998 relating to Materialise’s SurgiGuide techniques.
The lawsuit in the US is effectively an extension of a similar action in Europe where this past August the District Court of Dusseldorf ordered Nobel Biocare and Nobel Biocare Deutschland to stop offering the NobelGuide drilling templates in Germany, finding that they infringed Materialise’s analogous European patent No. 0 756 735. This decision, which is preliminarily enforceable, is subject to an appeal of Nobel Biocare pending at the Dusseldorf Court of Appeals.
Materialise’s US lawsuit is also a response to a recent Nobel Biocare civil action that seeks declaratory judgments that Materialise’s US patent is both not infringed by Nobel Biocare’s products and is invalid.
Bart Swaelens, CEO of Materialise Dental, said: “With this lawsuit, we are protecting our technology. Our SimPlant software was launched in 1991, and was followed by our SurgiGuide drill guides in 1999. The introduction of NobelGuide by Nobel Biocare, on the other hand, did not occur until 2005. Fortunately, the German court agreed that Nobel Biocare was infringing on our European patent, and we’re now hopeful that the US courts will follow suit.”