EDISON, N.J., Oct. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation (MTF) today announced that the patent infringement lawsuit brought by MiMedx Group, Inc., (MiMedx) against MTF, Liventa Bioscience, Inc., and Medline Industries, Inc., has been scheduled for trial on January 22, 2018. MTF is a nonprofit service organization and tissue bank with a mission to save and heal lives by honoring donated gifts, serving patients and advancing science.
Filed in April 2014, the case has been through a long series of court rulings that have narrowed MiMedx’s infringement claims significantly. MiMedx initially accused MTF of infringing 44 claims of six different patents. After court rulings early in the proceedings, MiMedx agreed by stipulation to the non-infringement of three asserted patents. Two other asserted patents were found invalid by the US Patent and Trademark Office during validity challenges known as an inter partes review (IPR). MiMedx unsuccessfully appealed one of the IPR decisions to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, with that court upholding the Patent Office’s ruling that the patent was invalid.
These rulings, collectively, have led to only a single patent out of the original six being in contention.
MiMedx’s infringement claims with respect to this sole patent remaining for trial also have been narrowed. Two of the eight claims of that patent originally asserted against MTF have been found invalid in patent litigation filed by MiMedx against other competitors in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, and another asserted claim has been found invalid in a separate patent litigation filed by MiMedx in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. This leaves only five claims of a single patent remaining in question.
The remaining asserted claims on the sole surviving patent are subject to two co-pending invalidity challenges before the Patent Office: an ex parte reexamination filed by MTF, which was instituted upon a finding that MTF’s request raised a “substantial new question of patentability” with respect to the challenged claims, and a petition for IPR filed by another entity sued by MiMedx, in which an institution decision is expected later this month.
“MTF remains confident in our position that no patent infringement exists, and we look forward to presenting our case to the jury,” said Bruce Stroever, President and CEO of MTF. “We expect to put this matter behind us in 2018 so we can focus all of our attention on the patients and physicians we serve.”
About MTF
Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation (MTF) is a nonprofit organization based in Edison, N.J. Now branded MTF Biologics, it is a national consortium comprised of leading organ procurement organizations, tissue recovery organization and academic medical institutions, and governed by a board of surgeons who are leading experts in tissue transplantation. As the world’s largest tissue bank, MTF saves and heals lives by honoring donated gifts, serving patients and advancing science. Since its inception in 1987, the organization has received tissue from more than 120,000 donors and distributed more than 7.5 million allografts for transplantation. Through its IIAM subsidiary, it has placed more than 55,000 non-transplantable organs for research. Through its Statline subsidiary, it has managed more than 10 million donor referrals. For more information, visit www.mtf.org.
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SOURCE MTF Biologics
