Medical device company OsteoMed LLC filed a complaint against Stryker Corporation with the Northern District of Illinois Tuesday, alleging patent infringement of a joint stabilization product.
OsteoMed, a medical device, implant, and surgical instrument manufacturing company, developed the ExtremiLock Foot Plating System aimed “to treat multiple reconstructive and trauma applications of the forefoot, midfoot and hindfoot,” according to the complaint. In 2009, OsteoMed began researching the incorporation of a transfixation screw to “increase the durability and reliability of a joint-fixation plate,” the complaint said.
On April 28, 2009, OsteoMed filed U.S. patent application No. 12/431,017, which was issued as the ’608 patent Sept. 10, 2013. The claims of the patent include that the device is “(a) plate for securing bones together across an intermediate joint (that includes) a transfixation screw hole.” The patent was reissued to claim priority as ’776, ’716 and ’085 in subsequent years.
Stryker, a medical device manufacturing company that specializes in joint replacement implants, surgical equipment, emergency medical equipment, among other products and specialties, has a line of implants for foot and ankle surgeries called the Anchorage CP plating system. The system “can be used to treat a first metatarso-phalangeal joint by fusing the first metatarsal and proximal phalanx” by using a transfixation screw to secure the bones across the joint.
OsteoMed alleged that Stryker’s Anchorage CP plating system is an infringement of all of the plaintiff’s patents-in-suit, which are described as a “system for securing bones together across a joint [that] includes a transfixation screw and a plate,” according to the ’608 patent, among other specifications covered under the patents-in-suit.
OsteoMed claimed Stryker’s alleged infringements were and continue to be “willful, intentional, deliberate and/or in conscious disregard of OseoMed’s rights” under the patents-in-suit and that they have “caused, and will continue to cause, OsteoMed to suffer substantial and irreparable harm” in the form of market share loss, loss of pricing discretion, price erosion and disruption of customer relationships, according to the complaint. The plaintiff requested a jury trial.
The plaintiff is represented by K&L Gates LLP.
