CooperVision, the contact lens unit of Lake Forest-based Cooper Cos., sued rival Ciba Vision for alleged patent infringement.
In a lawsuit filed in Texas, CooperVision alleged that Ciba, the eye care arm of Switzerland’s Novartis AG, violated patents relating to CooperVision’s 02Optix contact lenses.
Cooper said its suit concerned a pair of patents, one relating to features that control a certain type of contact lenses’ edge characteristics. The other relates to design, including one that helps treat astigmatism, which is blurred vision due to irregular-shaped corneas.
CooperVision also filed a suit in a Delaware federal court seeking a court ruling that its Biofinity line of silicone contact lenses does not infringe Ciba Vision patents.
Meanwhile, Orange County’s other contact lens company, Santa Ana-based solution maker Advanced Medical Optics Inc., saw its shares close up nearly 7% Tuesday.
The gain came on news that rival Bausch & Lomb Inc. stopped shipments of its ReNu MoistureLoc contact-lens solution after it was linked to a growing number of eye infections.
Advanced Medical and Alcon Inc., which employs about 500 people in Irvine, both saw their shares surge after Rochester, N.Y.-based Bausch & Lomb voluntarily stopped shipping ReNu MoistureLoc after the Food and Drug Administration warned of an increased number of cases of Fusarium keratitis, an infection that damages the cornea and causes temporary blindness.
Regulators haven’t directly linked ReNu MoistureLoc and the infection, but there was a high incidence of the brand usage among the affected people.
Alcon, a unit of Switzerland’s Nestle SA, was up 2.8% on the news.
