MEGADYNE MEDICAL PRODUCTS' PATENT UPHELD; ASPEN CONMED ENJOINED

MEGADYNE MEDICAL PRODUCTS' PATENT UPHELD; ASPEN/CONMED ENJOINEDSANDY, Utah, Nov. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- MegaDyne Medical Products of Sandy, has obtained a $2.1 million judgment and permanent injunction against Aspen Laboratories of Denver and ConMed Corp. of Utica, N.Y. (NASDAQ: CNMD).  United Teflon Coatings States District Court Judge Bruce S. Jenkins entered the judgment on Friday, Oct. 29, based upon the unanimous finding of a 12-member jury that MegaDyne's patent on disposable surgical electrodes was valid and that Aspen/ConMed had willfully infringed the patent.Dr. G. Marsden Blanch, an ear, nose and throat surgeon in Salt Lake City, invented the product, which is a surgical blade coated with a non- stick coating.  The invention eliminates the problem of tissue build-up on the blade during surgery.  Before the invention, surgeons were required to scrape or sand tissue from the blade, causing expensive downtime during surgery.  Blanch co-founded MegaDyne in 1985 to manufacture and sell the non-stick blade and other products.  The surgical community quickly embraced the non-stick blade, and the company has grown to a multimillion dollar business.Aspen/ConMed argued that it bought the rights to make a non-stick coated blade when it purchased the assets of the now-defunct Trident Surgical Corp. in 1983.  However, the Trident blade was coated with a different substance and did not have the non-stick feature that is covered by the MegaDyne patent.The jury awarded damages of $1,092,472.96.  Judge Jenkins doubled the damaged award based upon the jury's finding that Aspen/ConMed's infringement was willful.  The court also issued a permanent injunction prohibiting any further sales of the Aspen/ConMed product.  Both Aspen's original non-stick blade with gray-colored coating and its newer blade with a brown-colored coating were Water Based Coatings found to infringe and can no longer be sold.MegaDyne President Gary R. Kohl and Rodney R. Parker of Snow, Christensen & Martineau, legal counsel for MegaDyne, agree that this judgment is a decisive victory.  "This should be the last chapter in the enforcement of the MegaDyne patent," said Parker.  "This verdict sends a clear warning to other companies who might consider marketing a non- stick coated blade covered by the MegaDyne patent."-0-                        11/5/93/CONTACT:  Marsha Fetzer, 801-595-1155/(CNMD)CO:  MegaDyneMeg´a`dynen. 1. (Physics) One of the larger measures of force, amounting to one million dynes.  Medical Products ST:  Utah IN:  MTCmtc - A Modula-2 to C translator.ftp://rusmv1.rus.uni-stuttgart.de/soft/Unixtools/compilerbau/mtc.tar.Z.  SU:EH-JB -- LA017 -- 1334 11/05/93 15:53 ESTEST electroshock therapy. ESTabbr.electroshock therapy  COPYRIGHT 1993 PR Newswire Association LLCNo portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.Copyright 1993 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.