Benzinga | Sep 13, 2021 05:30PM EDT

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Rejects Axonics' Challenge to Medtronic Patents

Medtronic plc (NYSE:MDT), the global leader in medical technology, today announced it has won three additional important victories in a dispute over its intellectual property (IP) for its sacral neuromodulation device family, the InterStim(tm) systems. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected Axonics' (NASDAQ:AXNX) attempt to invalidate three Medtronic patents in its IP infringement lawsuit.

Significantly, this victory is in addition to the PTAB's affirmation of Medtronic's U.S. Patent No. 9,463,324 ('324 patent) in September 2020, which protects key technology related to implant recharging and temperature control. As soon as the PTAB completes its review of the remaining three challenged patents (U.S. Patent Nos. 8,457,758, 8,738,148, and 9,821,112), due within days, the company will return its attention to the infringement lawsuit against Axonics and request that the U.S. District Court in the Central District of California lift the stay and resume proceedings.

"Medtronic is pleased with the PTAB's decisions today," said Brett Wall, executive vice president and president of the Neuroscience Portfolio at Medtronic. "We believe competition drives innovation and is good for the industry and for patients. We also believe that protecting our proprietary technology and intellectual property is vital to our business."

The PTAB's latest decisions uphold all the claims in Medtronic's U.S. Patent Nos. 8,036,756 and 8,626,314, which protects technology related to its tined leads; and upholds claim 7 in Medtronic's U.S. Patent No. 7,774,069 ('069 patent), which protects technology related to its recharge power control. The PTAB's decision on the '069 patent also found claims 5, 6, 8 and 9 invalid, while claims 1-4 and 10-13 were not challenged by Axonics.