The narrative that a little company has little chance of beating a big company in patent lawsuits doesn’t always play out in the real world, and such was the case in a dispute between Snyders Heart Valve LLC and St. Jude Medical. The U.S. Court of Appeals recently handed Snyders a win in the court’s reversal of an inter partes review (IPR) of a Snyders patent for heart valves, the second time in the past year Snyders prevailed over the larger company in a patent hearing at the Federal Circuit.