J&J’s Ethicon seeks court ruling of non-infringement on Enseal

Johnson & Johnson‘s (NYSE:JNJ) Ethicon  and Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) subsidiary Covidien took to court again this week, continuing an ongoing spat over patents related to surgical shears and sealers.

Ethicon this week asked a federal judge in Massachusetts to find that its Enseal X1 surgical instrument doesn’t infringe a quintet of patents owned by Medtronic’s Covidien unit.

The company claims that Covidien refuses to acknowledge that its new Enseal X1 Large Jaw Tissue Sealer specifically does not infringe upon 5 specific patents, which it says is required under a 1999 settlement signed between the 2 groups, according to court documents.

The action is the 2nd between the companies so far this month in a spat that ranges all the way back to 1999.

Earlier this month, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board threw out ‘s patent on electrosurgical shears in a spat between the company and Johnson & Johnson‘s (NYSE:JNJ) Ethicon Endo-Surgery subsidiary, according to court documents released this week.

The patent relates to a bipolar electrosurgical shearing instrument used to seal and cut blood vessels or vascular tissue, designed to use “both mechanical clamping action and electrical energy to coagulate, cauterize and/or seal tissue,” according to court documents.

The spat between the 2 companies appeared to be over last month after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case.

Covidien in August asked the Supremes to hear its appeal of a December 2014 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which overturned a $177 million award to Covidien in the U.S. District Court for Connecticut. There, Judge Janet Bond Arterton had ruled that Ethicon Endo-Surgery infringed surgical shears patents held by Covidien’s corporate predecessors, Tyco Healthcare and U.S. Surgical Corp.

The Federal Circuit vacated the damages award, ruling that an Ethicon prototype anticipated the Covidien devices “because Ethicon conceived of the prototype before Tyco’s January 1997 conception date and diligently reduced it to practice without abandoning, suppressing, or concealing it thereafter,” Chief Judge Sharon Prost wrote for the 3-judge appeals panel. “The district court improperly held that the Ethicon prototype could not be considered prior art … and erred in finding that the curved blade claims and dual [cam] claims would not have been obvious.”

The high court’s decision, in which Justice Samuel Alito did not take part, means the Federal Circuit decision stands.

The companies agreed earlier in November to bury most of the hatchet, agreeing to drop the case with each side bearing its own legal costs, except for the then-pending Supreme Court bid.

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