Barry v. Medtronic, Inc., No. 17-2463 (Fed. Cir. 2019)
Annotate this CaseDr. Barry’s patents, entitled “System and Method for Aligning Vertebrae in the Amelioration of Aberrant Spinal Column Deviation Conditions,” claim methods and systems for correcting spinal column anomalies, such as those due to scoliosis, by applying force to multiple vertebrae at once. Dr. Barry sued Medtronic, alleging that Medtronic induced surgeons to infringe the patents. The jury found infringement of method claims 4 and 5 of the 358 patent and system claims 2, 3, and 4 of the 121 patent, rejected Medtronic’s several invalidity defenses, and awarded damages. In post-trial rulings on the jury issues, the district court upheld the verdict, rejecting challenges as to induced infringement and associated damages for domestic conduct, invalidity of the asserted 358 patent claims under the public-use and on-sale bars, and invalidity of all asserted claims due to another’s prior invention. The district court then rejected Medtronic’s inequitable-conduct challenge and enhanced damages by 20 percent while denying attorney’s fees to Dr. Barry, The Federal Circuit affirmed, rejecting several arguments by Medtronics, principally concerning the public-use and on-sale statutory bars, but also concerning prior invention, inequitable conduct, and induced infringement and associated damages.
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