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OrbusNeich Files Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against Boston Scientific

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. and HONG KONG, March 16 /PRNewswire/ -- OrbusNeich Medical, Inc. ("Orbus" or the "Company"), a designer, developer, manufacturer and marketer of innovative medical devices for the treatment of vascular diseases, today announced that it has filed a lawsuit against Boston Scientific Corporation ("BSC"). The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, asserts claims against BSC for patent infringement, breach of contract and for misappropriation of trade secrets. The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages and injunctive relief in connection with its claims.

Orbus is the owner by assignment of all right, title, and interest in U.S. Patent No. 7,329,277 entitled "Stent Having Helical Elements" and U.S. Patent No. 6,821,292 entitled "Crimpable Intraluminal Endoprosthesis Having Helical Elements." In its complaint Orbus alleges, among other things, that BSC has infringed these two Orbus patents relating to its proprietary luminal stent technology. Specifically the complaint alleges:

In July of 2000, the Company entered into a Confidential Disclosure Agreement (the "CDA") with BSC in advance of discussions related to a potential business relationship;
In connection with these discussions, Orbus provided BSC with a variety of proprietary stent samples and design details, including improved designs present in Orbus' patent application filed in December of 2000, which BSC tested, disassembled and destroyed;
Orbus filed provisional patents on certain elements of its design on December 11, 2000 and February 9, 2001. The final associated patents were lawfully issued on February 12, 2008 and November 23, 2004, respectively;
BSC filed a patent application with new stent design drawings that were not included in any of the provisional applications over which this new application claimed priority;
After BSC commercialized the Liberte stent, Orbus became aware of the theft of its designs by BSC; and
BSC has been manufacturing and selling its line of Liberte stent products without consideration to Orbus, the original designer of major aspects of the Liberte product architecture, itself.

"OrbusNeich has made significant investments of both funds and resources to develop this innovative technology that is a considerable improvement upon existing cardiovascular devices," said Al Novak, President and Chief Executive Officer. "The protection of these technologies is of the utmost importance to OrbusNeich, and the many talented people who worked to develop them. OrbusNeich has an obligation to its investors, employees and its physician customers and their patients to protect that property from those who seek to infringe upon its rights. We do not anticipate that this process will have an impact on our employees, customers or vendors."

Additional information about background, products, associated patents and the charges raised, please view the Company's Complaint as submitted to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Copies of the Complaint can be obtained through the Court's electronic filing system at www.vaeb.uscourts.gov.

About OrbusNeich

OrbusNeich designs, develops, manufactures and markets innovative medical devices for the treatment of vascular diseases. Products in the company's product portfolio are stents, balloons and guiding catheters marketed under the names of Genous(TM) Bio-engineered R stent(TM), Blazer(TM), R stent, Scoreflex(TM), Sapphire(TM), Sapphire(TM) NC, Avita(TM), Avita HP(TM), SafeCut(TM), Lumina(TM) and Saffron.

A global company, OrbusNeich is headquartered in Hong Kong and has operations in Fort Lauderdale, FL; Hoevelaken, The Netherlands; Tokyo, Japan; and Shenzhen, China. OrbusNeich, which has provided cardiology devices to physicians through its predecessor companies since 1979, today supplies products to interventional cardiologists in more than 60 countries. For more information, visit www.orbusneich.com.

    Media Contacts:

    Dan Katcher / Ed Trissel
    Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher
    +1 212-355-4449 (office)
    dkatcher@joelefrank.com
    etrissel@joelefrank.com

SOURCE OrbusNeich Medical, Inc.