Stryker settles hip implant suit against J&J-DePuy-Synthes

settled lawsuitStryker settles hip implant suit against J&J’s DePuy (MassDevice)

Stryker Corp. settles a patent infringement lawsuit filed against Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy Orthopaedics division; co-defendants Wright Medical, Zimmer Holdings and Smith & Nephew move to have their cases tossed as well.

Stryker (NYSE:SYK) agreed to dismiss Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) subsidiary DePuy Orthopaedics from a patent infringement lawsuit brought over Stryker’s patent for a hip implant component.

Stryker leveled the suit against DePuy and a quartet of other orthopedics rivals in November 2011, accusing the J&J division,Smith & Nephew (FTSE:SN, NYSE:SNN), Wright Medical (NSDQ:WMGI) and Zimmer (NYSE:ZMH) of violating a Stryker patent for “Acetabular Cup Assembly With Selected Bearing,” according to court documents.

The component, an acetabular cup “featuring a dual-locking mechanism and capable of accommodating a plurality of bearings with different characteristics,” has allowed Stryker to achieve “significant commercial success,” according to the lawsuits, filed in the U.S. District Court for New Jersey.

The suits against Smith & Nephew, Wright and Zimmer were consolidated with the DePuy complaint in May 2013, according to the documents.

In early June, Judge Susan Wigenton dismissed DePuy from the suit with prejudice and vacated the portions of her ruling on claim construction dealing with a claim term “which relate solely to the dispute between Stryker and DePuy and was not disputed by any of the other parties in this consolidated matter,” according to the documents.

A few days after that, Smith & Nephew, Wright and Zimmer asked Wigenton to toss their cases as well, filing simultaneous motions for summary judgment June 6. In a regulatory filing, Wright said it believes that its products don’t infringement patent based on Wigenton’s July 2013 claim construction.

“In filings with the court, Stryker has conceded that under the court’s claim construction rulings it can no longer pursue its infringement claims. Stryker has asked the court to dismiss the case so it may pursue an appeal,” Wright said in the filing.

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