A jury has ordered Nevro to pay Boston Scientific $20 million in a patent infringement case.

The Delaware jury found Nevro had infringed on two of the Marlborough, MA-based company’s patents related to the manufacturing of spinal cord stimulation technology. The jury found that two other Boston Scientific patents were not infringed.

Nevro said in a release that it plans to appeal.

Nevro's Chairman and CEO, Keith Grossman, said: "It is important to put this lawsuit into the proper context.  The suit regarding lead patents by Boston Scientific was in retaliation for the 2016 lawsuit Nevro filed to stop Boston Scientific from launching a 10kHz spinal cord stimulation system, which would blatantly and directly infringe Nevro's core intellectual property.  This lawsuit has absolutely no implications on Nevro's commercial efforts for current or planned products and is directed to manufacturing methods implemented by our third-party supplier.  Nevro will continue to be the exclusive provider of HFX with 10 kHz Therapy, which FDA determined to be superior to Boston Scientific's SCS therapy."

Nevro and Boston Scientific have been clashing over intellectual property since shortly after FDA approved Nevro's Senza spinal cord stimulation (SCS) system in May 2015. 

Boston Scientific told MD+DI via email that the company was pleased with the outcome, but noted the dispute was far from finished.

“We are gratified that the jury upheld Boston Scientific spinal cord stimulation lead patents and recognized that Nevro should pay for infringing those patents,” Boston Scientific told MD+DI via email.  “This is the first step in holding Nevro accountable for the use of Boston Scientific intellectual property. A trial is not yet scheduled on pending claims from Boston Scientific against Nevro for trade secret misappropriation and infringement of numerous additional patents.”

This is the latest patent litigation Boston Scientific has been involved with. Last month, the company reached a settlement with Micro-Tech Endoscopy resolving claims of patent infringement by Boston Scientific against Micro-Tech concerning hemostasis clips for use in endoscopy procedures. 

Boston Scientific will grant a royalty-bearing license to Micro-Tech for five years on its patented hemostasis clip technology, and Micro-Tech has agreed to drop its worldwide challenges to the validity of the patents at issue in the existing litigations.