The U.S. Supreme Court dashed Retractable Technologies’ (NYSE:RVP) hopes for a patent win in a long-running war over retractable syringe technology with Becton Dickinson & Co. (NYSE:BDX).
The Supremes last month refused to hear an appeal of a lower court’s decision to overturn part of Retractable’s win over BD, which the Little Elm, Texas-based medical device company sued in June 2007, claiming that Becton’s Integra syringes infringe patents covering its competing VanishPoint devices.
A federal appeals court decided in July 2011 to reverse a jury’s finding that both the 1m and 3ml sizes of the BD syringe infringed the Retractable patent, ruling that only the smaller size trespassed on the intellectual property. That same court later denied Retractable’s bid for a re-hearing, setting the stage for an appeal to the high court.