A Medical Device Daily

Media outlets have dubbed the ongoing legal battles between stent makers, the Stent Wars. A recent settlement between Boston Scientific (Natick, Massachusetts) and Johnson & Johnson (New Brunswick, New Jersey) however promises to be one of the most significant chapters in the epic, as it takes nearly a dozen of these cases off the board.

Boston Scientific reported that it will pay $716 million to settle long-standing litigation with Johnson & Johnson (New Brunswick, New Jersey) over intellectual property rights tied to Boston Scientific's cardiac stents. Boston Scientific said the payment will be made using existing cash reserves.

As of June 30 the company had $1.2 billion in cash and cash equivalents on hand. The settlement retires "more than a dozen lawsuits involving Johnson & Johnson" and disputes over the companies' vascular stent technologies. Both companies are primary players in the multi-billion-dollar stent business, with Boston Scientific considered the market leader.

The settlement comes on the heels of Cordis (Miami Lakes, Florida), a subsidiary of J&J, along with Wyeth (Madison, New Jersey) reporting that they were suing Abbott (Abbott Park, Illinois) and Boston Scientific. Cordis alleged infringement of a coatings patent for coronary stents (Medical Device Daily, Sept., 24, 2009). Both companies said that Abbott and Boston Scientific infringe the patent with every sale of the Xience V and Promus stents in the U.S.

There are dozens of cases regarding patent infringement between med-tech companies. Between Jan. 1, 2004, and Aug. 13, 2008 there were more than 20 lawsuits involving Medtronic (Minneapolis), all of which deal with patents. Boston Scientific has been named as part of more than 20 patent lawsuits in that time. Of that number for Boston Scientific, eight were filed in the first eight months of 2008, according to Justia.com, a database of legal news.

Boston Scientific recently settled patent claims with Medtronic, and, earlier this year, Medtronic said it would pay $400 million to Abbott to settle patent litigation over stents.