The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) denied a petition by C.R. Bard, Inc. requesting inter partes review of claims 1 and 2 of U.S. Patent No. 8,488,786, entitled “Catheter Tray, Packaging System, Instruction Insert, and Associated Methods,” with a listed assignee of Medline Industries, Inc. Figure 14 of the ‘786 patent is reproduced below.

The PTAB construed the claim term “reveal” to mean “[t]o make visible or to make (something that was hidden) able to be seen,” and found under this construction that “Petitioner has not explained adequately” how the prior art accounts for the step of “unfolding one or more layers of wrap to reveal an additional layer of wrap and the catheter assembly,” as recited in independent method claim 1.  Consequently, the PTAB found that “we are not persuaded that Petitioner has established a reasonable likelihood of prevailing in its challenges…”  A copy of the PTAB decision is available here.

C.R. Bard and Medline Industries are also involved in litigation regarding the ‘786 patent in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Medline Industries, Inc. v. C.R. Bard, Inc., Case No. 1:14-cv-03618, filed on May 16, 2014, the Complaint of which is available here.

The parties have also been involved in three other petitions for inter partes review involving related U.S. Patent Nos. 8,631,935 (IPR trial instituted for Claim 21 only) and 8,678,190 (IPR proceedings terminated).