D. Mass. Patent Litigation Update: May 2026

This is part of a series of articles discussing recent orders of interest issued in patent cases by the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

In Maquet Cardiovascular LLC v. Abiomed, Inc., et al., No. 1:17-cv-12311-FDS, Judge Saylor granted-in-part Plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment on Defendant’s affirmative defenses.

Plaintiff moved for summary judgment on four of Defendant’s invalidity theories: (1) lack of written description and enablement of the term “intravascular blood pump;” (2) lack of written description of the term “intravascular blood pump comprising a cannula;” (3) indefiniteness of the term “partially disposed;” and (4) indefiniteness of the term “elongate catheter.”

First, the Court denied summary judgment that the term “intravascular blood pump” has written description support. Defendant argued that the term referred to a genus of intravascular blood pumps while the specification disclosed only a single species (cable-driven pumps), and thus the specification failed to provide sufficient description as to the full scope of the genus. Defendant further argued that the claims were invalid under the ICU Medical/LizardTech line of cases because the specification attributed a particular function to the cable drive—turning the pump rotor—that could not be accomplished without such a drive. Therefore, Defendant contended that the narrow disclosure of cable-driven intravascular blood pumps was not sufficient to support the broader claim of all intravascular blood pumps.

Plaintiff argued that the drive mechanism of the pump was an unclaimed feature and therefore the specification did not need to describe it. The Court rejected that argument, explaining that although no drive mechanism was claimed, an intravascular blood pump operating inside the human heart—a highly sophisticated miniaturized device operating in an extraordinarily challenging environment—necessarily required a drive mechanism, and the specification disclosed cable-driven pumps only. While both parties presented contrary expert opinions as to whether the drive cable was critical to the invention and whether the specification’s disclosure of cable-driven pumps was sufficient to demonstrate possession of internally driven pumps, the Court noted that at the summary judgment stage the Court must examine the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party (i.e., Defendant), and therefore found a genuine dispute of material fact. Next the Court declined to resolve whether the genus/species framework or the ICU Medical/LizardTech line of cases provided the proper analytical framework, finding that under either framework there was a genuine dispute as to whether the written-description requirement of § 112 was satisfied. Accordingly, the Court denied the motion for summary judgment as to the defense of lack of written description.

The Court further denied summary judgment on the enablement defense, finding that it was subsumed by the written description dispute.

Second, the Court dismissed as moot Plaintiff’s motion as it regarded the written description of “intravascular blood pump comprising a cannula” in claim 3 because the Court had struck the relevant portions of Defendant’s expert report as untimely.

Third and fourth, the Court granted summary judgment of no indefiniteness as to both defenses. As to the term “partially disposed,” the Court granted the motion as unopposed because Defendant represented that it did not intend to present the issue to the jury. As to the term “elongate catheter extending proximally with respect to the intravascular blood pump,” the Court found that Defendant’s arguments went to written description or enablement rather than indefiniteness, and accordingly that Defendant could not prove by clear and convincing evidence that the term was indefinite. The Court also rejected Defendant’s argument that the term “extending” could not be understood by one of skill in the art, finding that the term is not used in isolation and, in context, conveys a spatial relationship between two components.

Accordingly, the Court denied Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment as to Defendant’s defense of lack of written description and enablement of the term “intravascular blood pump” and lack of written description of the term “intravascular blood pump comprising a cannula,” and granted the motion as to both indefiniteness defenses.

In Gratuity Solutions, LLC. v. Toast, Inc., No. 1:22-cv-11539-JEK, Judge Kobick denied Plaintiff’s special motion to dismiss Defendant’s counterclaims pursuant to the Massachusetts anti-SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) statute, M.G.L. Ch. 231, § 59H, which specifically allows such a motion. The Court denied the motion, finding that Plaintiff failed to demonstrate that either of Defendant’s counterclaims were based solely on Plaintiff’s own petitioning activity in filing and prosecuting its lawsuits.

Courts review special motions to dismiss under the Mass. anti-SLAPP statute in two stages. The first stage requires Plaintiff to show that the claims against it are based on its petitioning activities alone and have no substantial basis other than or in addition to the petitioning activities. The second stage requires Defendant to demonstrate that Plaintiff’s petitioning activity “was devoid of any reasonable factual support or any arguable basis in law” and caused Defendant “actual injury.”

Plaintiff’s special motion sought dismissal of two of Defendant’s counterclaims: (1) unfair competition under M.G.L. Ch. 93A and (2) abuse of process.

First, the Court found the unfair competition counterclaim was not based solely on Plaintiff’s petitioning activity. More specifically, the Court explained that Defendant’s counterclaim alleged Plaintiff used coercive or extortionate prelitigation tactics that, in Defendant’s view, were designed to force Defendant to acquire Plaintiff’s business. Accordingly, the Court found that because Defendant’s Ch. 93A counterclaim included conduct that occurred before Plaintiff filed its lawsuits, it seeks redress for substantial non-petitioning activity and is therefore not subject to dismissal.

Second, the Court found that disagreed with Plaintiff’s argument that its abuse of process counterclaim was based solely on its petitioning activity in filing two lawsuits. In particular Defendant’s abuse of process counterclaim alleged that Plaintiff threatened—in advance of filing its two lawsuits—“baseless” patent infringement claims to coerce Defendant into acquiring its business. The Court found that because Defendant’s abuse of process counterclaim included conduct that occurred before Plaintiff’s filed its lawsuits, the counterclaim seeks redress for substantial non-petitioning activity and is therefore not subject to dismissal.

Accordingly, the Court denied Plaintiff’s special motion to dismiss, concluding the Defendant’s counterclaims seek redress for substantial non-petitioning activity and are therefore not subject to dismissal.

Also in Maquet Cardiovascular LLC v. Abiomed, Inc., No. 1:17-cv-12311-FDS, Judge Saylor denied Defendant’s motion for supplemental claim construction, finding the argument had been waived after failing to raise it for six years.

This is the second lawsuit between the parties involving intravascular blood pump technology and Maquet’s patent claim reciting a “guide mechanism” term. One month before trial, Abiomed moved to construe the term as a means-plus-function limitation under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) and argued supplemental construction was warranted by the Federal Circuit’s affirmance of a similar construction in a related case and another Federal Circuit opinion.

The Court denied the motion as untimely. Claim-construction proceedings were held in 2019, followed by a written order and appellate review. After remand, the parties proposed a schedule that did not include further claim construction, and the case proceeded through discovery and toward trial. Defendant had multiple opportunities to raise its proposed construction, including when it filed and later withdrew a similar motion in 2025.

Relying on Federal Circuit precedent, the Court explained that failure to timely raise claim-construction arguments generally results in waiver. It found that Defendant’s delay was unexcused given the late stage of the litigation as well as both Plaintiff’s and the Court’s reliance on the existing claim construction framework in preparing for summary judgment and trial.

Furthermore, the Court rejected Defendant’s contention that “changed circumstances” excused the delay, explaining that the intervening Federal Circuit decisions did not announce new law, but rather applied existing law that could have been raised earlier. Having found Defendant waived its proposed construction, the Court denied the motion for supplemental claim construction.