Boston Scientific Ordered to Pay $308M to ICD Inventor

Boston Scientific Corp. has lost its patent licensing case against the principal inventor of the implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) and was ordered to pay his estate millions in lost royalty fees and damages.

The Montgomery County Circuit Court in Maryland ruled that Boston Scientific breached its license agreement with Mirowski Family Ventures LLC and ordered Boston Scientific to pay Mirowski $308 million in damages, according to a Reuters report. Boston Scientific vowed to appeal the judgment.

“The company believes the facts and the law do not support the jury’s findings or the amount of the damages,” Boston Scientific said in a filing, according to Law360. “The company plans to seek to overturn the judgment in post-trial motions with the Circuit Court and, if necessary, through the appeals process.”

The ruling ordered Boston Scientific to pay $86 million in royalties for ICDs sold in 2002 and 2003, and $222 million in damages to Mirowski for settling six patent infringement cases with a competitor, which was in violation of a prior deal made with Mirowski to help sue patent infringers, according to Law360. Mirowski had an agreement with Boston Scientific’s subsidiary Guidant that contractually obligated Guidant to include Mirowski in future patent suits, but Boston Scientific later chose to settle the cases against rival St. Jude Medical Inc. instead, depriving Mirowski of potential revenue.

Boston Scientific brought a complaint in 2011 against Mirowski in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana seeking a “declaratory judgment that it paid all royalties owed and didn’t breach any obligations with Mirowski,” according to the Wall Street Journal. “Mirowski filed counterclaims requesting damages, and sued Boston Scientific in May 2013 in the Maryland court alleging breach of contract.”

Dr. Michel Mirowski, who died in 1990, was the owner of the series of patents covering the ICD device used to monitor dangerous arrhythmias and to deliver electrical shocks to the heart to restore normal rhythm.

“Before development of the defibrillator, the death rate for patients with an erratic heartbeat was more than 40 percent,” according to his obituary published by the New York Times. “The mortality rate has been reduced to about 2 percent since the introduction of the device.”