A Medical Device Daily

Kinetic Concepts (KCI; San Antonio) reported that, together with Wake Forest University Health Sciences (Winston-Salem, North Carolina), it has filed additional patent infringement claims against Smith & Nephew (S&N; London) in an ongoing patent lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Antonio.

KCI filed the new infringement claims against S&N for the commercialization of a negative pressure wound therapy foam dressing kit. KCI said it believes the dressing kit infringes several patents in its intellectual property portfolio, including three patents licensed to KCI from Wake Forest. This case is currently set for trial on Oct. 5, 2009.

"Wake Forest and KCI are leading innovators in negative pressure wound therapy, having invested significant time and resources in the development of a wound care therapy that has been used to successfully treat nearly three million patients worldwide," said Catherine Burzik, president/CEO of KCI. "Enforcing and protecting our intellectual property rights enables us to continue investing substantial resources in innovation that delivers advanced therapies and products that significantly improve the healing – and the lives – of people around the world."

KCI first filed suit against S&N in May of last year shortly after that company acquired Blue Sky Medical Group (Carlsbad, California) (Medical Device Daily, May 17, 2008). Blue Sky had been involved in litigation over its negative pressure wound therapy products with KCI for several years prior to its acquisition by S&N.