OrbusNeich Medical, Inc. (Orbus), a medical device maker, announced that it has filed a lawsuit against Boston Scientific Corporation (Boston Scientific), a US-based medical device company. The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, asserts claims against Boston Scientific for patent infringement, breach of contract and for misappropriation of trade secrets. The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages and injunctive relief in connection with its claims.

Orbus is the owner by assignment of all right, title, and interest in US Patent No. 7,329,277 entitled “Stent Having Helical Elements” and US Patent No. 6,821,292 entitled “Crimpable Intraluminal Endoprosthesis Having Helical Elements.” In its complaint Orbus alleges, among other things, that BSC has infringed these two Orbus patents relating to its proprietary luminal stent technology. Specifically the complaint alleges:

In July of 2000, the company entered into a Confidential Disclosure Agreement (the “CDA”) with Boston Scientific in advance of discussions related to a potential business relationship;

In connection with these discussions, Orbus provided Boston Scientific with a variety of proprietary stent samples and design details, including improved designs present in Orbus’s patent application filed in December of 2000, which BSC tested, disassembled and destroyed;

Orbus filed provisional patents on certain elements of its design on December 11, 2000 and February 9, 2001. The final associated patents were lawfully issued on February 12, 2008 and November 23, 2004, respectively;

Boston Scientific filed a patent application with new stent design drawings that were not included in any of the provisional applications over which this new application claimed priority;

After Boston Scientific commercialized the Liberté stent, Orbus became aware of the theft of its designs by Boston Scientific; and

Boston Scientific has been manufacturing and selling its line of Liberté stent products without consideration to Orbus, the original designer of major aspects of the Liberté product architecture, itself.

“OrbusNeich has made significant investments of both funds and resources to develop this innovative technology that is a considerable improvement upon existing cardiovascular devices,” said Al Novak, president and chief executive officer. “The protection of these technologies is of the utmost importance to OrbusNeich, and the many talented people who worked to develop them. OrbusNeich has an obligation to its investors, employees and its physician customers and their patients to protect that property from those who seek to infringe upon its rights. We do not anticipate that this process will have an impact on our employees, customers or vendors.”