‘Baseless’: Australian biotech Cochlear steps up fight against US university over hearing device

Hearing implant maker Cochlear will fight the University of Pittsburgh in a US court to defend itself after the university accused the Australian biotech of patent infringement.

The two parties have been at odds since the end of 2021, when Cochlear was hit with court action claiming that elements of its Nucleus 6 and 7 implant products violated patents for wireless technologies that the university holds.

In its initial claim filed in the US District Court Western District of Texas, the university says Cochlear should pay damages and be ordered to pay a compulsory ongoing royalty for the use of the technology.

Cochlear implant devices are made up of a surgical implant and a sound processor, which communicate wirelessly through a headpiece coil so that the user can process sound.

The technology that lets the implant communicate with the sound processor is the at the centre of the case, with the University of Pittsburgh claiming it has a patent over a “wireless energy transfer unit” which is used in Cochlear devices.

Cochlear has roundly denied the allegations, however, and brought its own counter-claim against the University of Pittsburgh. The biotech says the university’s patents are invalid because Cochlear had developed and used the technology first.

“[The] plaintiff’s allegations that it owns rights to Cochlear’s technology, born from decades of tireless work and massive investment, are as baseless as its accusations of infringement,” Cochlear argues in documents filed with the court.

Cochlear is pushing for the university’s patent, which was filed in 2008, to be invalidated because Cochlear already had products on the market which used the technology before the university applied for a patent.

The University of Pittsburgh’s argument “relies on a flawed reading of its patent that improperly attempts to ensnare technology far afield of anything the patent actually covers”, Cochlear says.