U.S. Patent Office Allows Significant New V...( SAN JOSE Calif. April 18 /- VNUS(...),Health

SAN JOSE, Calif., April 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- VNUS(R) Medical Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: VNUS) today announced that the company has received a Notice of Allowability by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for a patent application that is a continuation of one of the three patents in the VNUS patent infringement lawsuit against suppliers of endovenous laser products.

The newly allowed VNUS patent application was filed as a continuation of VNUS's U.S. Patent No. 6,769,433 (the "'433 Patent"). The continuation patent uses the same patent specification as the '433 Patent and is published as patent publication number US 2004/0267258. VNUS has sued several endovenous laser manufacturers (Diomed, Inc., Angiodynamics, Inc., and Vascular Solutions, Inc.) for infringement of VNUS patents including the '433 Patent. That lawsuit is scheduled to begin trial against non-bankrupt defendants Angiodynamics and Vascular Solutions on June 23 of this year.

The newly allowed VNUS patent application contains claims that recite methods of applying energy from an elongate member leading to occlusion of a vein, where the elongate member may be a fiber optic and the energy may be light energy. Significantly, before deciding to allow the new VNUS patent, the Patent Office reviewed references that include those cited by the defendant endovenous laser companies during the patent litigation in their attempt to invalidate the '433 Patent.

Brian Farley, VNUS President and CEO, stated, "The decision by the U.S. Patent Office to grant a continuation of the '433 Patent in light of the references cited by our competitors is consistent with our long-standing contention that the patents asserted in our infringement suit are valid. Furthermore, we b
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