The mitral valve patent dispute between Neovasc and Edwards Lifesciences’ CardiAQ subsidiary has been settled. Vancouver-based Neovasc said it had resolved the three claims of correction of patent inventorship made by Edwards Lifesciences.

These patents are related to the Tiara, a self-expanding mitral bioprosthesis specifically designed to treat mitral valve regurgitation.

For reasons of efficiency and economy, and without reaching the merits of the dispute, the parties agreed to a judgment ordering CardiAQ's Jeremy Brent Ratz and Arshad Quadri be added as co-inventors of U.S. Patent No. 9,241,790, U.S. Patent No. 9,248,014 and U.S. Patent No. 9,770,329, which the Court ordered.

Each of these patents is directly related to and claims priority to the patent application that led to U.S. Patent No. 8,579,964, on which the Court had previously added Ratz and Dr. Quadri as co-inventors in November, 2016.

Settlement specifics include, each side agreeing to bear their own fees and costs; no money damages awarded; and non-restriction of Neovasc from practicing these patents going forward.

"We have been working diligently to clear [Neovasc] from a number of claims and the conclusion of this matter is also the conclusion of the last active claims that the company is aware of," commented Fred Colen, Neovasc CEO. "The German Appeals Court win provided us with further strategic options to resolve these claims and we have maintained the rights to practice our entire Tiara patent portfolio of 10 granted U.S. patents and 16 pending U.S. patents in order to preserve the unique and proprietary nature of our Tiara system. We will also continue to add to this portfolio as we seek to optimize our transapical design and protect our transfemoral, transseptal version of the Tiara."

The settlement follows a German court dismissing a claim last month, that was over co-inventorship of a European Patent for the Tiara device. In addition to these two cases, Neovasc and Irvine, CA-based Edwards have gone back and forth in litigation throughout the past few years.

In 2016, a Massachusetts federal jury found in favor of Edwards’ CardiAQ in its legal wrangling with Neovasc. Specifically, the jury found that Neovasc breached the nondisclosure agreement that the two parties signed when Neovasc was hired as a service provider. The jury also awarded $70 million to CardiAQ for misappropriating certain trade secrets of CardiAQ.

Edwards acquired CardiAQ for $400 million in 2015.