Boston Scientific Corporation (“Boston Scientific”) filed a petition with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board on April 10, 2015 requesting inter partes review of U.S. Patent No. 6,266,563 (“the ’563 Patent”).  The petition states that the ’563 Patent is owned by the UAB Research Foundation.  The petition has been assigned Case No. IPR2015-01038.

The ’563 Patent is entitled “Method and Apparatus for Treating Cardiac Arrhythmia,” and lists as inventors Bruce H. KenKnight, Raymond E. Ideker, Robert S. Booker, III, and Stephen J. Hahn.  The ’563 Patent states that it “relates to methods and an implantable apparatus for treating cardiac arrhythmia, particularly ventricular fibrillation.”  Figure 1 from the ’563 Patent is shown below.

The petition seeks review of all twenty of the ’563 Patent’s claims “as obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103 based on U.S. Patent No. 5,181,511 (‘Nickolls’), U.S. Patent No. 5,433,729 (‘Adams’), and the knowledge of a person of ordinary skill in the art.”

The petition states that the ’563 Patent has been asserted by the Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the UAB Research Foundation against Boston Scientific and Cardiac Pacemakers, Inc. in a lawsuit filed on September 22, 2014 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.  The complaint alleges that Boston Scientific and Cardiac Pacemakers, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Boston Scientific, infringe the ’563 Patent by making, using, offering to sell or selling cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillators (“CRT-Ds”), “including but not limited to the Incepta, Enrgen, Cognis, and Livian CRT-Ds . . . .”

The petition also states that Boston Scientific previously filed a petition requesting inter partes review of the ’563 Patent, alleging that all twenty claims were invalid as anticipated under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) by U.S. Patent No. 5,797,967 to KenKnight.  The prior petition was filed on March 23, 2015, and was assigned Case No. IPR2015-00918.