Beverly Hills surgeon sues Medtronic for patent infringement

Dr. Shirin Towfigh thought she had designed a medical machine that may revolutionize hernia care for women. Now, Towfigh is suing Medtronic, a world chief in medical devices, accusing the company of stealing her patented design. 

A Beverly Hills surgeon with over 22 years of experience, Towfigh says she discovered {{that a}} important number of her hernia victims experiencing post-surgery issues had been women — and that almost all mesh designs within the market had been primarily tailored to the male anatomy.

In 2016, she filed for a worldwide patent to protect a model new design aimed towards bettering outcomes for victims.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware on Tuesday, the most recent in a sequence of patent challenges in direction of Medtronic, Towfigh accuses the medical machine agency of stealing her design after the occasions met in 2015 and signed a mutual non-disclosure settlement. In 2016, Towfigh says she visited Medtronic’s manufacturing site in France to debate a attainable collaboration and her patent-pending product.

In May 2017, Medtronic filed its private hernia mesh patent for a product that Towfigh says rigorously 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 talked about in an interview with .  

Towfigh is suing for damages of an undetermined amount.

A spokesperson for Medtronic talked about in a press launch to that the company 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 numerous events with Medtronic over the course of numerous years nevertheless made little progress. In a 2019 e-mail change cited throughout the lawsuit, Towfigh expressed concern that Medtronic’s new mesh design “so exactly mirrored” her pending patent. An group marketing 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 concerns extra, Medtronic provided her a job as chief medical officer of the company’s hernia division, which she declined.

In 2020, an space Medtronic product sales marketing consultant approached her with a pre-market sample of the company’s new hernia mesh product. Towfigh described the product as virtually just like her private patent-pending design. 

“I couldn’t speak,” Towfigh knowledgeable . “I saw the actual product in my hands for the very first time and I just went pale.” 

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 first time Medtronic has confronted allegations of patent infringement. In 2014, the company was sued by Dr. Mark Barry, alleging that Medtronic violated two of his patents speculated to proper spinal factors. A federal select found that Medtronic “recklessly copied” Barry’s experience and awarded him $23.5 million. 

The an identical 12 months, Medtronic agreed to pay higher than $1 billion to settle patent litigation with Edwards Lifesciences over allegations that Medtronic’s CoreValve product infringed on its transcatheter coronary coronary heart valve patent. 

Most not too way back, in 2020, Colibri Heart Valve sued Medtronic, alleging the company’s devices violated its patent related to coronary coronary heart valve substitute for victims with cardiac circumstances. Medtronic was ordered to pay $106.5 million. 

— ‘s Scott Zamost and Agne Tolockaite contributed to this report.