Federal Circuit Axes CR Bard Patents Behind Decade-Old Lawsuit

C.R. Bard Inc. failed to convince the Federal Circuit to revive a decade-old patent lawsuit against AngioDynamics Inc., a rival maker of vascular access ports.

A Delaware federal judge correctly found Bard’s patents invalid since the company failed to show its asserted claims represented a meaningful advance over port products that predated them, the appeals court ruled Monday.

The earlier ports and the Bard patents both described a feature where the implants could be detected under a patient’s skin using an x-ray device, according to the unsigned opinion. The patents’ differentiator—a description of a port device with specific radiographic ...