Cas Medical Wins Part of Patent Battle against Nellcor

Cas Medical (Branford, CT) landed a court victory against rival Nellcor, a subsidiary of Covidien. In the fall of 2011, Nellcor filed a lawsuit against Cas Medical, alleging that the company violated a patent lawsuit settlement. In its lawsuit, Nellcor states that CAS Medical infringed on the settlement by protesting the validity of the 065 patent. The patent was being re-examined by the United States Patent & Trademark Office.

In July of last year, Nellcor filed for summary judgement, requesting that Cas Medical be banned from participating in the patent re-examination. However, Judge Sean Cox of the Eastern Michigan District Court denied this bid and an additional Nellcor motion.

This past June, Judge Cox granted a motion made by CasMed to devalidate Nellcor's allegations of a contract breach. He ruled that the re-examination of the patent by the patent office is not the same as the patent itself.

"The court finds that the pending amended claims in the pending merged reissue/reexamination proceeding were not part of [the patent]. Therefore, the court finds that Cas Medical did not breach the settlement agreement by filing the protest challenging the validity of those claims," noted Cox.

In addition, Cox granted a bid by CasMed for attorney fees related Nellcor's breach of contract claim. However, the court has not ruled on three remaining parts of Nellcor's lawsuit.