F&P Healthcare says German court suspends Resmed's patent proceedings

Inside the Fisher &Paykel Healthcare factory. Photo / Dean Purcell.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare says the Regional Court in Munich has suspended two patent proceedings brought by rival ResMed in a tit-for-tat dispute over intellectual property for face and nasal masks.

The Auckland-based company still has two cases in progress in the court regarding the assertion of its patents against ResMed's AirSense 10 and AirCurve 10 range of flow generator products and Lumis series of noninvasive ventilators, it said in a statement today.

Last December, F&P Healthcare succeeded in overturning the second of two preliminary injunctions against it in Germany, allowing the company to resume sales of the affected products in that country.

ResMed subsequently appealed those decisions to the Higher Regional Court in Munich. In May this year, the Higher Regional Court upheld one of the decisions of the Regional Court and ResMed withdrew its appeal of the other decision, F&P Healthcare said.

"ResMed continued the two actions on the merits with amended patent claims," it said. "However, the Regional Court in Munich has now also expressed serious doubts about the patentability of the asserted claims and has suspended the infringement cases."

Last year, ResMed filed a patent infringement complaint in the Southern District of California as well as lawsuits in Germany and New Zealand, and to the US International Trade Commission against F&P Healthcare in relation to face and nasal masks, just days after the Kiwi company filed its own patent infringement lawsuit against the US company in the US District Court for the Central District of California relating to its flow generator products and masks.

F&P Healthcare shares last traded at $12.65 and have surged 48 per cent this year.