Edwards Lifesciences Corp., an Irvine medical device maker, said a federal jury found that rival Medtronic Inc.’s CoreValve infringed a patent for a less-invasive heart valves and awarded it $74 million in damages.
The jury found that Medtronic CoreValve LLC, an Irvine unit of Minneapolis-based Medtronic, willfully infringed on a U.S. patent for a new type of heart valve that’s inserted through a catheter.
Edwards said it could get up to about $222 million in damages because the jury decided that Medtronic’s infringement was intentional.
Medtronic said it planned to appeal the jury’s finding and a permanent injunction that would block it from selling its valve in the U.S.
Courts in Britain and Germany have found that CoreValve’s valve doesn’t infringe upon the same patent. Edwards originally filed the suit against Medtronic two years ago.
Medtronic also said the ruling won’t prevent it from selling CoreValve in other countries and has enough manufacturing capacity to meet overseas demand if there’s a permanent injunction.
Medtronic bought CoreValve in 2009 for $700 million to make a bigger splash in the race for less-invasive heart valves.
Sapien, Edwards’ less-invasive heart valve, is in a clinical trial with an eye toward Food and Drug Administration approval in late 2011. CoreValve isn’t scheduled for U.S. regulatory approval until later in the decade.
