Occlutech, a leading European developer of minimally invasive implants for therapy in structural heart disease, has announced that it has successfully obtained a ruling by the U.K. Patents Court in the High Court of Justice in London, that invalidates AGA/St Jude’s patent -EP0957773B1 in the UK.

This decision is similar in effect to a decision obtained by the Opposition Division of the European Patent Office, (EPO), in Munich for the same patent already in December 2013. The EPO decision revoked the patent in its entirety as it extended beyond the application as filed and the UK ruling states that the patent is invalid due to public prior use of devices supplied by the inventors before the priority date of the patent. Both rulings are subject to appeal by AGA/St Jude.  

AGA/St Jude started litigation against Occlutech for infringing the 0957773 patent in the UK and in Germany already in 2011. While the U.K. court continued proceedings towards the present judgment, the German district court in Düsseldorf chose to stay proceedings until the EPO having taken a final decision on the validity/invalidity of the patent.

Occlutech’s CEO Tor Peters says, “Obviously, we are very happy to, again, get confirmation that we are not infringing any issued and valid patent held by our competitor. Our aim is to develop superior, patented, life-saving implants that make a difference to physicians and patients and we look forward to move this process forward.”

Occlutech has a manufacturing plant in Germany as well as R&D facilities in Sweden and Turkey. Implants such as ASD, PFO and PDA occluders as well as a large range of accessories from Occlutech are available in more than 80 countries.