On December 8, 2010, after five weeks of trial and four days of deliberation, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California returned a patent infringement verdict in favor of our client Tyco Healthcare Group LP d/b/a/ VNUS Medical Technologies (VNUS) and against two of VNUS’s competitors in the market for devices used in minimally invasive surgical procedures to treat veinous reflux disease (the cause of varicose veins).
The jury found numerous claims of VNUS’s five asserted patents to be both valid and infringed by defendants biolitec, Inc. and Total Vein Solutions, LLC (TVS), and further found the infringement by each defendant to have been willful. The jury awarded VNUS compensatory damages, as measured by VNUS’s lost profits, in the amounts of $9.3 million against biolitec and $36.5 million against TVS (nearly 100% of the amount requested from the jury). These awards are potentially subject to enhancement by the court in view of the jury’s determination that the infringement was willful. As to the claims found valid and infringed, the jury rejected multiple defenses pressed by the defendants, including assertions that the claims were anticipated, obvious, not enabled, and not infringed. The verdict is the culmination of a five year litigation campaign during which VNUS, represented by Davis Polk, achieved favorable settlements with a number of its other competitors.
The Davis Polk litigation team included partners Matthew B. Lehr and Anthony I. Fenwick, counsel Suong Nguyen, associates Gemma Chung Suh, David Lisson, and Jeremy Brodsky, and legal assistants Angela Quach and Gisele Darwish. All members of the Davis Polk team are based in the Menlo Park office.
