Abbott-Dexcom Lawsuit: Jury Verdict, European Front, and Settlement

The Abbott Dexcom lawsuit was a long-running patent fight between the two dominant U.S. makers of continuous glucose monitors, and it ended in December 2024 with a global settlement: a ten-year mutual promise not to sue, royalty-free cross-licenses on the disputed patents, and no money paid by either side.¹²

What the Companies Were Fighting Over

Abbott and Dexcom sell the two leading continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) in the United States: Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre and Dexcom’s G6 and related devices. Both products use a small subcutaneous sensor and a transmitter that reports blood-glucose readings to a display device. The patents in dispute covered the building blocks of that technology, including electrochemical sensors, sensor-insertion mechanisms, transmitter-mounting systems, and the communication protocols between sensor and receiver.³

The commercial stakes were unusually large for a two-party patent fight. The U.S. CGM market is worth roughly $4 billion and growing as Medicare expands coverage to more people with Type 2 diabetes. Abbott reported $1.3 billion in FreeStyle Libre sales in a single quarter of 2023 and has publicly targeted $10 billion in annual CGM revenue by 2028. Dexcom added more than 800,000 users between 2021 and 2023.⁴

How the Dispute Started

The two companies have been in and out of court over glucose monitoring for nearly two decades. Abbott first sued Dexcom in 2005 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, claiming Dexcom’s STS device infringed patents covering subcutaneous glucose sensing. A second suit followed in 2006, the cases were consolidated, and Abbott filed a third infringement action in 2013.⁵⁶

All three cases settled in 2014. Under that agreement, Abbott and Dexcom cross-licensed certain patents, agreed not to sue each other for infringement, and agreed not to challenge each other’s patent validity, including through inter partes review at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Any disputes about the agreement had to be litigated in Delaware. The covenant not to sue ran through March 31, 2021.⁷⁸

The 2021 Round of Litigation

The peace broke almost as soon as it expired. In June 2021, Dexcom sued Abbott in the Western District of Texas, alleging that FreeStyle Libre infringed sixty claims across five Dexcom patents. Abbott filed its own suit in Delaware the next day, accusing Dexcom’s G6 of infringing Abbott patents and arguing that Dexcom’s Texas filing itself breached the 2014 agreement’s forum clause.⁸⁶

Judge Alan Albright transferred Dexcom’s Texas case to Delaware in May 2022, and it was consolidated with Abbott’s suit under case number 1:21-cv-00977. Abbott also opened a second front at the patent office, filing eight IPR petitions in April 2022 to try to invalidate the Dexcom patents. Dexcom argued the IPRs violated the 2014 forum clause, but the Federal Circuit ruled in January 2024 that the clause did not bar IPR filings after the covenant period ended.⁸

The Delaware Jury Verdict

The consolidated case went to trial for two weeks in Delaware on four Abbott patents covering sensor-insertion and transmitter-mounting features. Dexcom’s G6 was the representative accused product. On March 22, 2024, the jury returned a mixed verdict:⁹

On U.S. Patent No. 10,945,649, the jury found Dexcom infringed claim 28, but not willfully.
On U.S. Patent No. 10,945,647, the jury found no infringement.
On U.S. Patent No. 10,874,338, the jury found no infringement and held the relevant claim invalid as obvious.
On U.S. Patent No. 11,000,216, the jury could not agree, producing a hung verdict.

No damages were awarded at the liability stage. A damages trial was set to follow.¹⁰

In a November 13, 2024 opinion, Circuit Judge Kent Jordan (sitting by designation) granted Abbott judgment as a matter of law on the hung ‘216 patent, concluding that the G6 literally infringed claim 3. He also ruled that the infringement was not willful, held Abbott entitled to a reasonable royalty and a new damages trial, and denied Abbott’s request for lost profits. Both sides appealed.³¹¹

The European Front

The fight was not confined to U.S. courts. In the United Kingdom, thirteen patents were staged across multiple trials starting in 2021. In the January 2024 “Trial A” ruling, Mr. Justice Mellor of the High Court invalidated four patents, two from each side, including Abbott’s EP 2 146 627 and EP 2 476 223 and Dexcom’s EP 2 914 159 and EP 3 782 539. Separate UK trials in October 2023 and June 2024 found no infringement of Abbott patents by Dexcom’s devices.¹²¹¹

The newer Unified Patent Court, which sits across multiple European countries, became the most damaging venue for Dexcom. In July 2024, the Paris Local Division invalidated Dexcom’s EP 3 435 866 as obvious over Abbott’s own prior art. Later that month, the Munich Local Division invalidated Dexcom’s EP 3 797 685 for lack of inventive step. In December 2024, days before the settlement, the Paris Local Division invalidated a third Dexcom patent, EP 3 831 282. The revocation of EP 3 435 866 also undercut Dexcom’s parallel infringement claim on the German portion of that patent in the Mannheim Regional Court. No German court issued an injunction against Abbott before the settlement.¹³¹⁴¹¹

The December 2024 Settlement Terms

Abbott and Dexcom reached a global settlement on December 20, 2024, announced publicly on December 23. The core terms:¹¹⁵

A ten-year covenant not to sue on patent, trade dress, and design rights, running through December 2034.¹⁶
Worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully paid-up cross-licenses covering the analyte-sensing patents at issue, including every patent asserted in the litigation.
No payments in either direction. Reporters have called it a “zero-zero” deal.²
Dismissal of every pending case in courts and patent offices worldwide.
Agreements not to challenge the licensed patents for periods that vary by patent.

The parties filed a joint motion to dismiss the consolidated Delaware case with prejudice on December 23, 2024, formally closing the U.S. proceedings. Abbott said the deal let the company “fully focus on supporting people with diabetes with its technologies and services.”²

What the Settlement Means

The structure closely mirrors the 2014 deal that came before it: cross-licenses, no cash, and a fixed peace period. By the time the companies signed, Dexcom’s offensive push in Europe had largely collapsed, with the UPC revoking three asserted patents and UK courts finding no Abbott infringement. In the United States, Abbott held infringement findings on two patents but faced a damages retrial and cross-appeals with no certain outcome. Ending on royalty-free terms let both sides avoid conceding financial ground, and the ten-year runway pushes the competition between FreeStyle Libre and Dexcom’s G-series back onto product performance, price, and payer coverage rather than the courtroom.

1
Abbott Media Room. Abbott Agrees to Global Continuous Glucose Monitoring Litigation Settlement With Dexcom
2
MedTech Dive. Abbott, Dexcom Settle CGM Patent Lawsuits
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GovInfo.gov. Abbott Diabetes Care Inc. v. DexCom Inc., Memorandum Opinion
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MedTech Dive. Dexcom, Abbott DTC Marketing Consumers CGM Coverage
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GovInfo.gov. Abbott Diabetes Care Inc. v. DexCom Inc., Memorandum and Order
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Reuters. Abbott Sues Dexcom Over Glucose Monitoring Patent Settlement, License
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U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. DexCom Inc. Settlement and License Agreement
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U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. DexCom Inc. v. Abbott Diabetes Care Inc., No. 23-1795
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Bloomberg Law. Dexcom Infringes Abbott Glucose Tracker Patent in Mixed Verdict
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Law360. Jury Says Dexcom Infringed 1 Abbott Patent in Mixed Verdict
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IPFray. Abbott Fends Off Dexcom’s Push for Patent Royalties
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JUVE Patent. Invalid Patents: Abbott, Dexcom CGM Diabetes Continuous Glucose Monitoring
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OneNucleus. Dexcom vs Abbott UPC
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JUVE Patent. No Luck for Dexcom at UPC After Judgement From Munich Local Division
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U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. DexCom Inc. Current Report (Form 8-K)
16
Fierce Biotech. Abbott, Dexcom Agree 10-Year Truce Over Diabetes Sensor Patent Litigation