Commitments and Contingencies |
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Commitments And Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Commitments and Contingencies |
6. Commitments and Contingencies Operating Leases In March 2015, the Company entered into a lease agreement for approximately 50,000 square feet of office space located in Redwood City, California for a period beginning on June 30, 2015 and ending in May 2022, with initial annual payments of approximately $2.0 million, increasing to $2.4 million annually during the final year of the lease term. In December 2016, the Company entered into a first amendment to the lease for an additional approximately 50,000 square feet of office space adjacent to the premises under the original lease (the Expansion Premises), with initial annual payments of $1.2 million, increasing to $2.9 million in the final year of the amended lease term. The lease for the Expansion Premises commenced on June 1, 2018, and it will expire on May 31, 2025. The first amendment also extends the lease term for the original premises to terminate on the same date as the Expansion Premises. The Company entered into a separate non-cancellable facility lease for warehouse space beginning on March 1, 2017 through February 28, 2022, under which it is obligated to pay approximately $0.4 million in lease payments over the term of the lease. In August 2020, the Company entered into a lease for approximately 35,411 square feet of space for a manufacturing facility in Costa Rica to begin in and to last through , under which it is obligated to pay approximately $3.9 million in lease payments over the term of the lease. On the commencement date in April 2021, the Company classified and measured the lease, resulting in the recording of operating assets of $2.9 million and operating lease liabilities of $2.9 million.See Note 3 for further discussion on Lease Accounting. Warranty Obligations The Company provides a limited one- to five-year warranty and warrants that its products will operate substantially in conformity with product specifications. The Company records an estimate for the provision for warranty claims in cost of revenue when the related revenues are recognized. This estimate is based on historical and anticipated rates of warranty claims, the cost per claim and the number of units sold. The Company regularly assesses the adequacy of its recorded warranty obligations and adjusts the amounts as necessary. Activities related to warranty obligations were as follows (in thousands):
License Agreement In October 2006, the Company entered into an amended and restated license agreement with the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (Mayo) and the Venturi Group LLC (VGL), which provides the Company access to certain know-how and licensed patents owned by Mayo and VGL for treatment of central, autonomic and peripheral nervous system disorders, including pain, using devices to modulate nerve signaling. The licenses granted are exclusive and the Company has the right to sub-license. The agreement will terminate upon the expiration of (1) the last to expire of the licensed patents or (2) the Company’s obligations to pay royalties, whichever is later, unless terminated earlier. The agreement can be terminated by the Company, Mayo or VGL upon 60 days’ notice of a party’s material breach if such breach remains uncured after such 60-day period. Per the terms of the license, the Company is required to pay royalties based on the greater of earned royalties or a minimum royalty. The earned royalty is based on a percentage of net sales of licensed products either by the Company or the sub-licensee. The minimum royalty payment is based on royalty periods as defined in the agreement. In March 2011, the Company entered into a Phase II License Agreement with Mayo which provides the Company access to the certain know-how and licensed patents owned by Mayo. The licenses granted are exclusive and the Company has the right to sub-license. Per terms of the license, the Company is required to:
The Company’s obligation to pay royalties ends on the last day of the fifth calendar year after the year for which the first commercial sales occurred within a country. As such, the Company’s royalty obligations related to the geographies into which it currently sells ended on December 31, 2020. The Company recognized royalty expense during the periods indicated as follows (in thousands):
Contingencies From time to time, the Company may have certain contingent liabilities that arise in the ordinary course of business activities related to, for example, employment matters and patent issues. The Company accrues a liability for such matters when it is probable that future expenditures will be made and such expenditures can be reasonably estimated. There were no contingent liabilities requiring accrual at June 30, 2021 and December 31, 2020. Indemnification The Company enters into standard indemnification arrangements in the ordinary course of business. Pursuant to these arrangements, the Company indemnifies, holds harmless and agrees to reimburse the indemnified parties for losses suffered or incurred by the indemnified party, in connection with any trade secret, copyright, patent or other intellectual property infringement claim by any third-party with respect to the Company’s technology. The term of these indemnification agreements is generally perpetual. The maximum potential amount of future payments the Company could be required to make under these agreements is not determinable because it involves claims that may be made against the Company in the future, but have not yet been made. The Company has entered into indemnification agreements with its directors and officers that may require the Company to indemnify its directors and officers against liabilities that may arise by reason of their status or service as directors or officers, other than liabilities arising from willful misconduct of the individual. The maximum potential amount of future payments the Company could be required to make under these indemnification agreements is unlimited; however, the Company has director and officer insurance coverage that reduces the Company’s exposure and enables the Company to recover a portion of any future amounts paid. The Company believes the estimated fair value of these indemnification agreements in excess of applicable insurance coverage is minimal. Legal Matters Boston Scientific Litigations California Litigation Related to High Frequency On November 28, 2016, the Company filed a lawsuit for patent infringement against Boston Scientific Corporation and Boston Scientific Neuromodulation Corporation (collectively, Boston Scientific). The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (the California Court), asserted that Boston Scientific was infringing, or would soon begin infringing, seven of the Company’s patents covering inventions relating to the Senza system and HF10 therapy. Shortly after the Company filed this lawsuit in 2016, Boston Scientific cancelled its original launch plan and modified its SCS system to avoid infringing the asserted patents. On July 24, 2018, the California Court issued an order on claim construction and summary judgment. In the order, the California Court ruled that the Company’s asserted method claims were patent eligible and not invalid as indefinite. Collectively, the asserted method claims cover methods for delivering SCS therapy at frequencies between 1.5 kHz and 100 kHz. The California Court, however, found that Boston Scientific was not currently infringing the six upheld method claims because Boston Scientific cancelled its original launch plans and ultimately never practiced the asserted method claims in the United States. Specifically, the California Court found that Boston Scientific's sale of the Spectra WaveWriter systems for commercial use in the United States did not infringe the upheld method claims because Boston Scientific modified the Spectra WaveWriter systems to prevent them from being programmed to generate signals above 1.2 kHz. The California Court also found that the Company’s asserted system claims were invalid as indefinite. As discussed below, the California Court’s finding of invalidity was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the Federal Circuit). On July 27, 2018, the parties submitted a joint statement to the California Court wherein Boston Scientific asserted that, with respect to whether any U.S. launch of a high-rate product (such as the Precision with MultiWave and Spectra WaveWriter models used in the ACCELERATE study or any other system that is programmable at any frequency in the range 1.5 to 100 kHz) was imminent, Boston Scientific had not decided whether to launch such a product; had not established a timeline for when such a decision might be made, if ever; and had not determined what frequencies would be enabled if it were to decide to launch such a product in the future. On the basis of the foregoing, the parties agreed to dismissal on ripeness grounds of the Company’s declaratory judgment claims without prejudice. The dismissal was thereafter entered as a court order on July 31, 2018. The Company and Boston Scientific then each appealed portions of the California Court’s July 24, 2018 ruling to the Federal Circuit. On April 9, 2020, the Federal Circuit returned its ruling, which vacated and remanded the California Court’s judgment of invalidity. As a result of the Federal Circuit’s ruling, the system claims invalidated by the California Court were reinstated, and thus all of the Company’s asserted claims remain valid and enforceable. On December 14, 2020, the parties agreed to the final dismissal of all remaining claims before the California Court based on Boston Scientific’s reassertion to the court that it still does not have any current plans to commercially launch a high frequency SCS system in the United States. The California Court entered the agreed upon dismissal on December 16, 2020. Delaware Litigations Unrelated to High Frequency On December 9, 2016, Boston Scientific filed a patent infringement lawsuit alleging the Company’s manufacture, use and sale of the Senza system infringes ten of Boston Scientific’s patents covering spinal cord stimulation technology related to stimulation leads, rechargeable batteries and telemetry (the Delaware I litigation). On April 27, 2018, Boston Scientific filed a second lawsuit alleging patent infringement of nine patents, trade secret misappropriation and tortious interference with contract (the Delaware II litigation). Both lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. In relation to the Delaware I litigation, the Company filed petitions for inter partes review at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), which resulted in the invalidation of all of the asserted claims of Boston Scientific’s U.S. Patent Nos. 7,587,241 and 6,895,280, in February 2019. The invalidity rulings by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) at the USPTO were later affirmed by the Federal Circuit on May 18, 2020 and May 29, 2020, respectively. In relation to the Delaware II litigation, the Company filed seven petitions for inter partes review at the PTAB against seven of the nine patents asserted by Boston Scientific. As a result of those petitions, in January 2021, the PTAB invalidated all but two of the challenged Boston Scientific claims across the seven inter partes reviews. Through various orders from the court, portions of Boston Scientific’s cases have been dismissed, portions have been stayed for future litigation, and portions have been merged and are set for trial in October 2021. More specifically, the Delaware court has set at October 2021 trial to hear Boston Scientific’s case with regard to six patents from the Delaware I litigation in conjunction with the trade secret misappropriation claim of the Delaware II litigation. The Company will be presenting its defenses to these claims in the October 2021 trial. As of this time, the Company is unable to determine an outcome or potential range of loss. In relation to the Delaware II litigation, the Company also filed counterclaims against Boston Scientific, alleging patent infringement of five Nevro patents. In March 2021, on the basis of Boston Scientific’s petition, the PTAB initiated inter partes reviews of two of Nevro’s five counterclaim patents. The Delaware court later stayed Nevro’s five counterclaim patents for future litigation. On February 23, 2021, the Company filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Boston Scientific alleging that its January 2021 launch of the WaveWriter Alpha™ SCS System infringes five of the Company’s patents covering spinal cord stimulation technology related to delivering paresthesia-free therapy at frequencies below 1,200 Hz. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware (the Delaware III litigation), seeks unspecified damages and attorney’s fees, as well as preliminary and/or permanent injunctive relief against further infringement. Stimwave Litigation On February 14, 2019, the Company filed a lawsuit for patent infringement against Stimwave Technologies, Inc. (Stimwave) in the Delaware Court asserting that Stimwave was infringing the Company’s patents covering inventions related to its 10kHz therapy and the Senza system, as well as a claim for false advertising under the Lanham Action Section 43(a), 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a). In relation to this lawsuit, on July 24, 2019, the Delaware Court granted the Company’s motion for preliminary injunction, and issued an order barring Stimwave, and all affiliated persons and entities, from infringing patent claims covering frequencies between 3 kHz and 10 kHz. On February 27, 2020, the Company and Stimwave entered into a Settlement Agreement, in which Stimwave agreed to cease commercialization of all high frequency spinal cord stimulation systems worldwide. Stimwave also agreed to entry of a permanent injunction in the Delaware Court, under which Stimwave’s products will not deliver spinal cord stimulation therapy that includes pulse frequencies between 1,500 Hz and 100,000 Hz. The permanent injunction was filed with the Delaware Court and entered on March 2, 2020. After the Delaware Court entered the permanent injunction, the case (including Stimwave’s appeal of the preliminary injunction order) were dismissed. As part of the permanent injunction filing, Stimwave acknowledged the validity of the patents Nevro asserted in the litigation. Per the Company’s request, the permanent injunction order does not enjoin Stimwave from providing follow-up care and programming for any patients who were already programmed with high frequency therapy in the United States prior to March 6, 2020, and in the rest of the world prior to April 30, 2020. Nalu Litigation On February 28, 2020, the Company filed a lawsuit in the Delaware Court for patent infringement against Nalu Medical, Inc. (Nalu) asserting that Nalu is infringing the Company’s patents covering inventions related to its 10kHz therapy and the Senza system. As of June 30, 2021, the Company did not record a liability, as an outcome or potential loss range cannot be reasonably determined for the aforementioned legal matters. The Company is and may from time to time continue to be involved in various legal proceedings to defend its intellectual property, including several pending European patent oppositions at the European Patent Office (EPO) initiated by the Company’s competitors Medtronic and Boston Scientific, an entitlement action filed by Boston Scientific in Germany, and an invalidity proceeding in China. In addition, the Company is and may from time to time also be involved in various legal proceedings of a character normally incident to the ordinary course of business, such as employment matters, product liability matters, and professional liability matters, which the Company does not deem to be material to its business and condensed consolidated financial statements at this stage. |