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Dr. Shirin Towfigh thought she had designed a medical machine that might revolutionize hernia care for girls. Now, Towfigh is suing Medtronic, a world chief in medical gadgets, accusing the corporate of stealing her patented design.
A Beverly Hills surgeon with over 22 years of expertise, Towfigh says she found {that a} vital variety of her hernia sufferers experiencing post-surgery problems had been ladies — and that the majority mesh designs in the marketplace had been primarily tailor-made to the male anatomy.
In 2016, she filed for a global patent to guard a brand new design aimed toward bettering outcomes for sufferers.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware on Tuesday, the newest in a sequence of patent challenges towards Medtronic, Towfigh accuses the medical machine firm of stealing her design after the events met in 2015 and signed a mutual non-disclosure settlement. In 2016, Towfigh says she visited Medtronic’s manufacturing web site in France to debate a possible collaboration and her patent-pending product.
In May 2017, Medtronic filed its personal hernia mesh patent for a product that Towfigh says carefully resembles her design.
“I expected a publicly traded company to have a more ethical approach about it, and that’s not what I experienced,” Towfigh mentioned in an interview with .
Towfigh’s patented mesh designs.
U.S. District Court in Delaware
Towfigh is suing for damages of an undetermined quantity.
A spokesperson for Medtronic mentioned in a press release to that the corporate is reviewing Towfigh’s grievance.
“Medtronic believes in its innovation and has a long history of respecting the intellectual property rights of other innovators,” the spokesperson wrote.
Towfigh says she adopted up a number of occasions with Medtronic over the course of a number of years however made little progress. In a 2019 e-mail change cited within the lawsuit, Towfigh expressed concern that Medtronic’s new mesh design “so exactly mirrored” her pending patent. An organization consultant responded to Towfigh saying Medtronic was “not going in the path of what you described to us in your patent.”
Towfigh says upon elevating her considerations additional, Medtronic supplied her a job as chief medical officer of the corporate’s hernia division, which she declined.
In 2020, an area Medtronic gross sales consultant approached her with a pre-market pattern of the corporate’s new hernia mesh product. Towfigh described the product as practically similar to her personal patent-pending design.
“I couldn’t speak,” Towfigh informed . “I saw the actual product in my hands for the very first time and I just went pale.”
The pre-market pattern of Medtronic’s hernia mesh product.
Source: U.S. District Court in Delaware
In October 2019, Towfigh’s worldwide patent was authorised. In May 2020, Medtronic launched its new hernia mesh product, Dextile.
The lawsuit isn’t the primary time Medtronic has confronted allegations of patent infringement. In 2014, the corporate was sued by Dr. Mark Barry, alleging that Medtronic violated two of his patents supposed to right spinal points. A federal choose discovered that Medtronic “recklessly copied” Barry’s expertise and awarded him $23.5 million.
The identical 12 months, Medtronic agreed to pay greater than $1 billion to settle patent litigation with Edwards Lifesciences over allegations that Medtronic’s CoreValve product infringed on its transcatheter coronary heart valve patent.
Most not too long ago, in 2020, Colibri Heart Valve sued Medtronic, alleging the corporate’s gadgets violated its patent associated to coronary heart valve substitute for sufferers with cardiac circumstances. Medtronic was ordered to pay $106.5 million.
— ‘s Scott Zamost and Agne Tolockaite contributed to this report.
