July 17, 2017 – Anglefix, LLC and the University of North Carolina sued Wright Medical Technology in June of 2013, alleging that Wright’s Claw II and Ortholoc products infringed U.S. Patent No. 6,955,677, entitled “Multi-angular fastening apparatus and method for surgical bone screw/plate systems.”

On July 13, 2017, Judge Jon McCalla denied Plaintiffs’ Motion for partial summary judgment on infringement and granted Defendant’s motion for summary judgment of non-infringement as to the patent’s apparatus claims.  Plaintiffs failed to establish that the accused products had the required non-threaded aperture.  The Court denied Defendant’s motion as to the method claims.

The Court also denied Defendant’s Motion for summary judgment on invalidity.  Defendant argued that prior art disclosed a bone plate including “at least one, at least partially circumferential projection” which a person of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized contemplates a “plurality of protrusions being arranged circumferentially.”  Unpersuaded, the Court relied on the PTAB’s logic in IPR2014-00626 that projections were unaltered ridges and did not constitute protrusions in the ’677 Patent.

The case is captioned TNWD-2-13-cv-02407, in the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee.

By: Joyce L. Nadipuram