(Bloomberg) ? Becton Dickinson & Co., the world?s largest maker of hypodermic syringes, told a jury that a Tyco International Ltd. unit cost the company $6 million by infringing a patent for a needle safety shield. At the start of a trial yesterday, Becton lawyer Marc Labgold asked a jury to award the company as much as $6 million in lost profits and to rule the infringement intentional, which may allow US District Judge Gregory Sleet to triple the damages to $18 million.

?They used Becton Dickinson?s product as a model, as a benchmark, as a guide,? Labgold told jurors in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware. ?They consciously looked at our product.?

The trial comes at a time when both Becton Dickinson, with $4.52 billion in fiscal 2003 sales, and Tyco, with $36.8 billion in sales last fiscal year, have received document subpoenas from federal prosecutors investigating health-care billing. Both companies? shares have risen more than 36 percent in a year. John Skenyon, representing Tyco Healthcare Group LP, told jurors ?there are significant differences? between a shield his company sells to cover needles after use and the one protected by a 1994 Becton patent. Tyco also contends the patent is invalid because it doesn?t include an adequate description of the invention.

The shields are both actuated by one hand, and slide forward to cover the sharp tip of the needle to prevent accidental ?sticks? that might expose medical workers to blood-borne diseases including AIDS and hepatitis.