PRESS
RELEASE
U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Federal Circuit Affirms Infringement Judgment and Permanent Injunction Against
Tyco/Kendall
December
5, 2003
Contact: Paul Richins
(801) 566-1200
Salt Lake City, Utah - Utah Medical Products,
Inc. (NASDAQ:UTMD) announces that the United States Court of Appeals for the
Federal Circuit upheld in entirety the Federal District Court for the
District of Utah formal judgment issued on September 19, 2002 awarding UTMD
approximately $23 million in damages and accrued interest as a result of the
January 2002 jury verdict that the Tyco International/ Kendall•LTP 4000
Softrans® Intrauterine Pressure Catheter (IUPC) literally infringes UTMD’s
United States Letters Patent No. 4,785,822 for inventions relating to a
“Disposable Intracompartmental Pressure Transducer.”
UTMD markets the Intran® Plus IUPC which practices this patent. In addition,
the Appellate Court upheld the permanent injunction against Tyco prohibiting
the manufacturing, marketing, selling and/or otherwise distributing of the
4000 Softrans IUPC for the duration of UTMD’s patent. UTMD now needs to
address additional damages for infringing product willfully sold by Tyco
after the January verdict, or willfully distributed by national hospital
distributors, as well as other medical device companies, after notification
of the injunction.
UTMD’s successful effort to defend its intellectual property took almost
seven years’ time, requiring significant determination in the face of the
required cost and effort. A substantial part of the good news surrounding
this event is the discontinuance of that drain on the company’s resources.
The judgment vindicates UTMD’s market leadership and reputation as the
inventor of a transducer-tipped IUPC, which greatly enhanced the clinical
value of intrauterine pressure monitoring. With a transducer-tipped
catheter, physicians can rely on accurate measurements of contraction
intensities, and amplitudes of resting tones and peak contraction pressures,
over extended time in difficult deliveries. When augmenting or inducing
labor with oxytocin, or when amnioinfusing to replace decreased amniotic
fluid volume to decrease variable fetal heart rate decelerations, the
American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) now recommends in its
guidelines to physicians to closely monitor the “powers” of labor, which are
the contraction intensities and pressure amplitudes. Previously,
intrauterine pressure monitoring was used primarily in monitoring the onset
and frequency of contractions.
UTMD was ably represented by Burbidge & Mitchell, Attorneys, Salt Lake City
in this lawsuit. According to UTMD CEO Kevin Cornwell, “Given the complexity
of patent law and the much larger amount of legal resources applied by Tyco
in this case, UTMD believes significant credit is due to the diligence and
legal aptitude of its lawyers, in particular, Richard Burbidge, Stephen
Mitchell and Jefferson Gross. Thank you.”
Utah Medical Products, Inc., with particular interest in healthcare for
women and their babies, develops, manufactures, assembles and markets a
broad range of disposable and reusable specialty medical devices designed
for better health outcomes for patients and their care-providers.
|