Litigation
Inari Medical, Inc. v. Inquis Medical Corp.
active- Filed
- 2024-09-11
Patents at issue (2)
Plaintiffs (1)
Defendants (1)
Summary
Inari Medical sued Inquis Medical in D. Del. over the Aventus Thrombectomy System and Aventus Clot Management System. The narrative reports an operative amended complaint and willful-infringement allegations with a June 2024 knowledge date. The '314 patent was not identified as asserted.
Case overview & background
Plain-language overview of the case: parties, accused product, patents at issue, and why the suit matters.
I'll research this case thoroughly before drafting the overview.
Let me dig into the specific patents named in the metadata and check for PTAB proceedings and parallel developments.
Key legal developments & outcome
Major rulings, motions, claim construction, settlements, and the present posture or final disposition.
I'll research this case systematically. Let me start with several searches in parallel.
I've found the core case (D. Del. 1:24-cv-01023). Note the metadata's patent numbers differ from the asserted patents found in filings — I'll investigate. Let me dig deeper.
Plaintiff representatives
Counsel of record for the plaintiff(s): attorneys, firms, and roles (lead counsel, of counsel, local counsel).
I'll research the counsel of record for Inari Medical in this case using web search.
I found the key case (C.A. No. 24-1023-CFC-EGT). Let me dig into docket appearances and firm-side details.
Now let me verify the Hueston Hennigan team members and check for any later changes in counsel.
Counsel of Record — Plaintiff Inari Medical, Inc.
Case: Inari Medical, Inc. v. Inquis Medical, Inc., C.A. No. 24-1023-CFC-EGT (D. Del.) — note the caption has since appeared in some sources as Inari Medical, Inc. f/k/a Inceptus Newco1 Inc. v. Inquis Medical, Inc., reflecting the post-Stryker acquisition entity (see caveat at the end).
Plaintiff Inari is represented by a two-firm team: Hueston Hennigan LLP as lead/national trial counsel and Richards, Layton & Finger, P.A. as Delaware counsel. No in-house Inari attorney has entered an appearance on the docket in the records I could retrieve.
Delaware (local) counsel — Richards, Layton & Finger, P.A., Wilmington, DE
| Name | Role | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Kelly E. Farnan (D. Del. #4395) | Local/Delaware counsel; principal signatory on filings | Director at RL&F and one of the District of Delaware's most prolific patent local counsel; she signed the summons, the Jan. 7, 2025 Rule 16 letter (D.I. 19), and the Jan. 23, 2025 discovery-dispute motion (D.I. 27), where she is expressly listed as "Delaware Counsel." |
| Sara M. Metzler (D. Del. #6509) | Delaware counsel | RL&F attorney; filed the Oct. 1, 2024 pro hac vice motion (D.I. 9) and continues to appear on service notices as of April 2026 (D.I. 322). |
| Edmond S. Kim (D. Del. #6835) | Delaware counsel | RL&F attorney; listed on the plaintiff's counsel block in D.I. 27. |
Lead counsel — Hueston Hennigan LLP (Newport Beach & Los Angeles, CA)
| Name | Role | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Christina V. (Von der Ahe) Rayburn | Lead counsel (designated as such in D.I. 27, Jan. 23, 2025) | Partner, Newport Beach office. Harvard J.D. (2007); Stanford B.S. mechanical engineering; registered patent attorney; former Orrick partner. Notable patent results: $25M plaintiff verdict for Acorn Semi v. Samsung; complete defense verdict (non-infringement + invalidity) as lead trial counsel for ClearOne in D. Del.; preliminary injunction win for ClearOne; summary judgment of non-infringement for Amazon. She also authored the Sept. 10, 2024 cease-and-desist letter that is Exhibit I to the amended complaint. |
| James "Jimmy" Biblarz | Lead counsel (named alongside Rayburn in D.I. 27) | Partner, Los Angeles office. Earlier in his career at Munger, Tolles & Olson; named to the 2025 "Best LGBTQ+ Lawyers Under 40" list (Hueston Hennigan firm announcement). |
| John C. Hueston | Of counsel / senior trial counsel (pro hac vice, admitted Oct. 2–3, 2024) | Founding partner of Hueston Hennigan; nationally known trial lawyer (former lead prosecutor in the Enron/Ken Lay–Jeff Skilling case). Signed the notice-of-service filings through 2026. |
| Karen Younkins | Of counsel (pro hac vice, admitted Oct. 2024) | Los Angeles office; member of the Hueston Hennigan trial team on the case. |
| Chandler Matz | Of counsel (pro hac vice, admitted Oct. 2024) | Los Angeles office; on the case team per the D.I. 322 service list. |
| Yegor Fursevich | Associate/team member | Los Angeles office; listed on the Hueston Hennigan service block in the April 2026 notice (D.I. 322). |
Case-specific contact: Hueston Hennigan maintains a dedicated case email, Inari-Inquis@hueston.com, listed on service documents.
Sourcing / verification notes
- Pro hac vice admission: D.I. 9 (Motion for Pro Hac Vice Appearance of Attorneys John C. Hueston, Christina Rayburn, Karen Younkins, and Chandler Matz), granted SO ORDERED by Chief Judge Connolly on Oct. 2, 2024; Matz, Younkins, and Rayburn added for electronic noticing Oct. 4, 2024, and Hueston Oct. 3, 2024 (Justia docket, D. Del. 1:24-cv-01023).
- Lead vs. local designation: the plaintiff's counsel block in the Jan. 23, 2025 teleconference motion (D.I. 27) states verbatim: "Plaintiff's Counsel: Delaware Counsel: Kelly Farnan; Lead Counsel: Christina Rayburn, Jimmy Biblarz," with the Hueston Hennigan of-counsel block listing Hueston, Rayburn, and Younkins.
- Current through latest docket activity I could retrieve: the April 7–8, 2026 Notice of Service (D.I. 322) still lists RL&F (Farnan, Metzler) and Hueston Hennigan (Younkins, Matz, Fursevich, Biblarz, plus Hueston and Rayburn on a separate service block) — i.e., no substitution or withdrawal of plaintiff's counsel appears in the public docket records available to me. I could not access PACER directly (paywalled), so I relied on the CourtListener RECAP docket (No. 69151160) and Justia's docket mirror.
Caveats
- No in-house counsel confirmed. I found no appearance by an Inari Medical legal-department attorney (nor any public identification of Inari's general counsel as counsel of record) in this case. If one exists, it is not on the docket in the records retrievable here.
- Caption/party-status caveat. Commentary at ipde.com (Mar. 17, 2026) refers to the case as Inari Medical, Inc. f/k/a Inceptus Newco1 Inc. v. Inquis Medical, Inc., C.A. No. 24-1023-CFC, which suggests the plaintiff entity is now the Stryker merger subsidiary renamed "Inari Medical, Inc." I could not independently confirm a formal caption amendment on the docket, so treat that as partially sourced.
- Patent-metadata discrepancy (flagging, not resolving). The case metadata in this assignment lists U.S. Patents 11,154,314 and 12,039,332 as the patents at issue, but the pleadings I retrieved assert the '180, '332, '909, and '382 patents (with the '332 = 11,969,332 matching). The '314 patent appears in Inari's portfolio/prosecution history (e.g., the Imperative Care joint claim construction statement) and, per the existing case summary, was not identified as asserted in this action. This does not affect the counsel identification above.
- Attorney biographies (firm website, published profiles) are self-reported and were used only for the one-line experience notes; the case-specific roles and contact details are grounded in the docket documents cited.
Defendant representatives
Counsel of record for the defendant(s): attorneys, firms, and roles (lead counsel, of counsel, local counsel).
I'll research the defendant's counsel in this case using web searches.
I found a key docket document. Let me verify counsel appearances and check for any related/parallel cases with the patents listed in the metadata.
Let me verify the appearances on the docket and check the PTAB/parallel proceedings and firm details.
Defendant's Counsel of Record — Inari Medical, Inc. v. Inquis Medical, Inc. (D. Del.)
Bottom line: The