"Dr. Gary Michelson is a belligerant, serial litigator"

Here is the October 2004 issue of Orthopedic Network News. It goes into greater detail of the Medtronic, Dr. Gary Michelson lawsuit. Dr. Gary Michelson was not really the inventor of the threaded spinal cage. A horse vet made the initial cage years earlier and presented it at a human spine conference. Another doctor suggested adding threads to keep it from dislodging. These people actually built and used the threaded cage design before Gary Michelson was on the scene. It looks like Gary Michelson was just the first to patent it with a diagram and description. Gary didn't build or use one until seven years after he filed the patent. It appears Gary heard about this design from the spine symposium and decided to file the patent. First to file is first to own the patent.

http://spine.orthopedicnetworknews.com/archives/onn154s4.pdf

"Dr.

Michelson is a belligerent and intimidating serial litigator who

has parlayed his knowledge of the US patent system into almost

a billion dollars from the spine industry in the form of royalties

and legal judgments."

Dr. Gary Michelson made clandestine recordings of his conversations with Medtronic. The article also states that

"By putting information about the

cage in a public forum, he abandoned certain intellectual

property rights to his invention."

Seems a horse vet actually invented the first spinal cage but he presented his idea at a public forum thereby making it impossible for him to patent the idea. It also seems that because Gary Michelson described a method for inserting his cage, he owns claim to anything that is inserted be it a threaded cage or not. In the end this just costs the patient more money.

Just as I thought. Gary Michelson didn't really invent the threaded spinal cage. He was just first to patent it because he is familiar with the patent application. Because he also included a description of the method of introducing it, he owns the patent on any other item someone invents that is inserted in the spine. The full article is not that long and it's very interesting. It's linked above.