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Following a twelve-day trial, the jury in this matter found that Abiomed’s Impella 2.5, Impella 5.0, Impella CP, and Impella CP with Smart Assist intravascular pumps did not infringe Maquet’s U.S. Patent No. 10,238,783 under the reverse doctrine of equivalents. Abiomed had admitted that these products met each of the literal limitations of at least claim 1 of the ‘783 patent, but asserted that these products operated in a sufficiently different fashion as to fall out of the scope of the claims. Abiomed had survived a challenge as to the viability of the reverse doctrine of equivalents shortly before the trial. The jury further found that the asserted claim, claim 1, of the ‘783 Patent was invalid for failure to meet the written description and enablement requirements. Maquet had survived a motion for summary judgment on this issue, and the arguments related to it can be found here.
While this verdict appears to wrap up the case (at least at the district court level), there remains an issue of whether assignor estoppel should preclude Abiomed form challenging the validity of the patent, and if so, whether that estoppel should extend to written description and enablement issues. The assignor estoppel issue, being equitable in nature, was held from the jury and will be decided at a later date by Judge Saylor.
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