Smith & Nephew Case Transferred Out Of Eastern District Of Texas

Knobbe Martens announced today that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ruled in favor of its client Smith & Nephew, Inc. and granted Smith & Nephew's motion to transfer a patent infringement case brought by Kinetic Concepts, Inc. relating to negative pressure wound therapy. As a result of the decision, Smith & Nephew will not have to defend against the patent infringement claims in the Eastern District of Texas, but will do so in a different jurisdiction in Texas where a Smith & Nephew subsidiary has previously obtained a noninfringement jury verdict on related KCI patents. The transfer decision was one of the first in a patent case by Judge Ward since the Fifth Circuit's landmark ruling in In re Volkswagen II to clarify the transfer standard. The Knobbe Martens litigation team representing Smith & Nephew on the transfer motion included Joseph Re, Brent Babcock, Christy Lea, and Andrew Hall.