WRIGHT MEDICAL CLEANS UP CONFORMIS KNEE AND ANKLE PATENT SUIT (Orthopedics This Week)
see also… Patent dispute is resolved with a new license agreement between ConforMIS, Wright and MicroPort
In September 2013, ConforMIS, Inc. filed a patent infringement suit against Wright Medical Group, Inc. In January 2014, Wright Medical sold the patents at issue to MicroPort Orthopedics.
ConforMIS alleged that Wright Medical’s Prophecy knee and ankle system infringed on four ConforMIS patents. On April 13, 2015, the companies announced a definitive agreement to settle the lawsuit. The parties had reached an agreement of principle in October 2014 and this announcement memorializes the agreement.
Under the settlement, Wright Medical entered into a license agreement with ConforMIS under which Wright Medical received a “fully paid, perpetual, non-exclusive, worldwide license under ConforMIS’s patent portfolio to make, use and sell patient-specific instrumentation, and any product, device or system that is used in connection with such patient-specific instrumentation, in the foot and ankle, but excluding patient-specific implants. The licensed products include the Prophecy system for use with the Company’s InBone and Infinity total ankle replacement systems.”
In conjunction with the ConforMIS license, Wright Medical also entered into agreement with MicroPort Orthopedics. On behalf of MicroPort, Wright Medical agreed to pay certain expenses, license fees and royalties owed by MicroPort to ConforMIS under a license agreement simultaneously entered into by MicroPort and ConforMIS. Those payments will run through 2016 and are based on sales of MicroPort’s Prophecy patient-specific instrumentation system for use with the Advance and Evolution total knee replacement systems.