Life Spine Wins Appeal Wiping Out Globus Implant Patent Claims

Life Spine Inc. persuaded the Federal Circuit to invalidate the last challenged claims of a Globus Medical Inc. spinal-implant patent after the appeals court rejected a narrower interpretation of the invention.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board wrongly interpreted language in US Patent No. 8,845,731 requiring two ramped portions of an expandable spinal implant to be “complementary with one another,” Judge Leonard P. Stark wrote in a nonprecedential opinion issued Thursday for a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

The panel reversed the US Patent and Trademark Office tribunal’s final written decision that upheld ...