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Vascular Solutions Files Patent Infringement Complaint Against Boston Scientific

20-May-2013 | Source : | Visits : 6922
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota - Vascular Solutions Inc. announced in a press release that it has filed a patent infringement complaint in the US District Court for the District of Minnesota against Boston Scientific Corporation. 

The complaint alleges that Boston Scientific has infringed three patents owned by Vascular Solutions concerning rapid exchange guide extension technology by manufacturing and selling its Guidezilla™ guide extension catheter which received 510(k) clearance in March 2013. Vascular Solutions is seeking an injunction against Boston Scientific prohibiting the manufacture and sale of its Guidezilla catheter as well as damages for lost profits and legal costs.

US Patents 8,048,032, 8,142,413 and 8,292,850, comprising 60 claims in total and having an initial filing date of May 2006, were issued by the US Patent and Trademark Office to Howard Root, et. al. and assigned to Vascular Solutions concerning rapid exchange guide extension technology. These patents form the basis for Vascular Solutions’ GuideLiner® catheter, the first and until now only rapid exchange mother-and-child guide extension catheter. Since its launch in 2009, the GuideLiner catheter has been described by prominent interventional cardiologists as an “indispensable tool,” a “game-changing device,” and a catheter that “makes impossible cases possible.”

“Boston Scientific’s Guidezilla is one of the most blatant plagiarisms of a patented medical device that I have ever encountered,” said Howard Root, Chief Executive Officer of Vascular Solutions.

“Virtually every substantive aspect of our GuideLiner product and patents, from the design to the dimensions to even the exact words used in the product’s deployment instructions, has been misappropriated by Boston Scientific and applied to their Guidezilla catheter. We do not take the initiation of patent litigation lightly, but this is exactly the type of conduct that patents were intended to protect – a small medical device company creating a completely new and innovative product only to be flagrantly violated by a knock-off brazenly marketed by the world’s largest interventional cardiology company. We intend to move quickly to stop this violation of our rights.”

Vascular Solutions Inc. is an innovative medical device company that focuses on developing unique clinical solutions for coronary and peripheral vascular procedures.
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