A federal jury in Massachusetts concluded on Thursday that Abiomed’s Impella intravascular heart pumps do not infringe a patent asserted by Maquet Cardiovascular, and the jury also declared the patent invalid, an Abiomed attorney said on Friday.
The case, originating from a 2017 lawsuit filed by Maquet, alleged that Abiomed’s devices violated a patent covering a design that allows a heart pump to be positioned at a particular location within a patient’s circulatory system. The jury’s findings rejected both the infringement claim and the patent's validity.
Maquet is owned by Sweden-based Getinge Group (ST:GETIb). Company representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the verdict on Friday.
Johnson & Johnson, which acquired Abiomed in an all-cash transaction valued at $16.6 billion in 2022, said the outcome supports its longstanding position. A J&J spokesperson said the verdict "vindicates what we have maintained all along: Abiomed invented a life-saving heart pump and Maquet’s patent cannot be stretched so far as to capture Abiomed’s innovation."
Abiomed’s Impella platform has a history stretching back to U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for its early models in 2008. The products remain central to J&J’s medical devices portfolio; Abiomed-branded devices generated $1.75 billion in worldwide revenue for J&J in 2025.
The Impella line has also faced regulatory action in recent years. The Food and Drug Administration has issued several recalls related to different Impella models, a matter noted in court filings and public records.
The litigation addressed specific technical claims about pump design and placement within the circulatory system. The jury verdict resolves the dispute raised in Maquet’s complaint, but Maquet had not provided an immediate public response to the finding as of Friday.
Context and next steps
The jury decision closes a chapter in a legal dispute that began with Maquet's 2017 suit accusing Massachusetts-based Abiomed of patent infringement. An Abiomed attorney relayed the jury’s conclusion on Friday, and J&J publicly commented that the ruling confirms Abiomed’s independent development of the Impella technology.
Information in the record includes the timeline of regulatory approvals and commercial performance for the Impella pumps, alongside prior FDA recalls. How market participants and the companies involved respond in subsequent filings or appeals was not detailed in the materials reviewed in this report.
The scope of the verdict is limited to the claims and patent at issue in this case. The companies implicated in the dispute and the U.S. regulatory actions referenced in public documents are the principal facts reported here.