The High Court has ordered Edwards to disclose documents about projected production of its PASCAL device in Ireland, including at a new plant under construction at Castletroy, County Limerick. The ruling was made on contested discovery motions in a patent dispute brought by Evalve Inc., Abbott Cardiovascular Systems Inc. and Abbott Medical Ireland Limited against Edwards Lifesciences Ireland Limited, Edwards Lifesciences Corp. and Edwards Lifesciences LLC.
Mr Justice Brian O’Moore’s ruling, delivered on 1 July 2020, addressed the categories of discovery still in dispute after hearings on 12 and 18 June and further agreement between the parties. It did not decide the underlying patent claims. The judge said the production documents should capture Edwards’ projections for PASCAL quantities to be made in Ireland, particularly at Castletroy. He excluded other manufacturing plans lacking relevance, giving equipment makers and equipment budgets as examples. The parties were asked to agree revised wording for that category, with the judge to settle it if they could not.
For another category, the court set 14 February 2020, the date proceedings began, as the start date for documents about intentions or plans to offer, market or use PASCAL in Ireland. Abbott had sought documents from the device’s EU launch on 1 February 2019, partly to address Edwards’ defences of delay, laches and acquiescence. The judge concluded that pre-proceedings documents were not needed for that purpose.
The court also ordered documents sufficient to show whether, and in what quantities, PASCAL was or was planned to be imported into or stocked in Ireland. It separately ordered information on actual and planned exports from Ireland to Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Spain. Edwards had argued that injunctions against Irish manufacture could have harmful, disproportionate or oppressive effects in other EU jurisdictions. The judge said export itself was not alleged to infringe Abbott’s rights in Ireland, but the destinations and quantities were relevant to that defence. The parties agreed the export information could be provided in a table.
On Edwards’ discovery requests, the court ordered disclosure of items of prior art considered by Abbott, while removing the unclear reference to “possible prior art”. It also ordered reciprocal discovery of Abbott-product analyses by Edwards, including use of the search terms “MitraClip” and “TriClip”. The judge declined to make Edwards’ discovery of material about Abbott products’ features and performance conditional on reciprocal discovery, noting Abbott had already agreed discovery on the same issues in terms it had requested.
The judge also directed that two disputed search terms be used for categories 7.3 to 7.9, finding no convincing evidence that they would create a disproportionate burden. The parties were to draft wording reflecting the rulings, and the matter was listed for mention on 9 July 2020 to address outstanding matters.