Federal Circuit Remands Intravascular Stent Patent Dispute Between Boston Scientific, Scimed and Dr. Jang

Holding:

The Federal Circuit in this appeal vacated the district court's consent judgment in a contract dispute over intravascular stent patents, and remanded the case for clarification. Plaintiff-appellant David Jang as the inventor of patents-at-issue had earlier filed contract claims against patent assignees Boston Scientific and Scimed to collect payments. The right to these payments depended on whether the sale of certain devices by Boston Scientific and Scimed were “covered by” (i.e., would have infringed) the patents at issue. The district court issued a consent judgment that included its earlier claim constructions. Aggrieved, Jang timely appealed from the judgment, challenging only the district court’s claim construction with respect to the patents. In this appeal, the Federal Circuit found that the consent judgment suffered from two ambiguities. First, the Federal Circuit found it impossible to discern from the stipulated judgment which of the district court’s claim construction rulings would actually affect the issue of infringement. Second, the stipulated judgment provided no factual context for the claim construction issues presented by the parties. In particular, nothing in the stipulated judgment provided any context with respect to how the disputed claim construction rulings related to the accused products.

Detailed Summary:

Plaintiff-appellant Jang is the named inventor of the ’021 and ’743 patents, relating to the design or architecture of intravascular stents, tube-shaped mesh devices used to treat certain forms of cardiac disease. In this contract case, Jang alleged that defendant-appellee Boston Scientific Corporation (“Boston Scientific”) and Scimed Life Systems Incorporated (“Scimed”) breached a contract with Jang by failing to make required payments. The right to these payments depended on whether the sale of certain devices by Boston Scientific and Scimed were “covered by” (i.e., would have infringed) the patents at issue, originally issued to Jang and later assigned to defendants-appellees. Opinion,…

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