Published on August 2, 2004 at 8:47 AM
Last tuesday marked the conclusion of a patent trial involving discontinued trocar products by United States Surgical, a market leader and innovator of minimally invasive surgical instruments.
Following an earlier February 2002 infringement ruling issued by the court, a jury awarded $43.5 million to Applied Medical Resources Corp., a company based in Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif. The jury ruled also that the earlier infringement was willful, a finding subject to potential increase in damages by the trial court. The trial court has yet to consider a motion to set aside the jury's verdict on willfulness.
The lawsuit involves the seal system used in some of US Surgical's former Versaport(TM) trocar and access devices. The Versaport(TM) products are no longer on the market and have been replaced by US Surgical's next generation Versaport(TM) Plus products.
"Now that we have this lawsuit involving these discontinued products behind us, we look forward to continuing to serve our customers with our current line of Versaport(tm) Plus trocar products, which are not impacted by this lawsuit," said Alan Panzer, US Surgical's president.
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