The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Sept. 11 affirmed decisions in a patent infringement case between Moskowitz Family and Globus Medical, according to court documents reviewed by Becker’s.
Moskowitz Family sued Globus Medical in November 2019, claiming several of the medical device company’s products infringed patents covering implant systems designed to improve spinal fusion surgery — including an implant positioning tool, an apparatus for facilitating bone and screw fusion, and an expandable spinal implant.
At the center of the case was how narrowly a federal judge had defined the word “universal” in two of Moskowitz’s patents. Moskowitz argued the definition was too restrictive and had wrongly knocked those patents out of the case on summary judgment. The federal circuit disagreed, upholding U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania’s reading of the term.
The court affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment of noninfringement related to two patents.
The appeals court also affirmed the district court’s denial of Moskowitz’s motion for judgment as a matter of law regarding a separate patent. For that patent, a jury had found Globus did not infringe a claim involving the relationship between a gripper and handle in a tool assembly, and the federal circuit found substantial evidence supporting the jury’s finding of noninfringement.
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