A Medical Device Daily

SonoSite (Bothell, Washington) said it has filed an amendment to its patent infringement lawsuit against General Electric (GE; Fairfield, Connecticut) and certain of its affiliates in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. The lawsuit and the amendment are filed as a counterclaim to the complaint GE and its affiliates filed against SonoSite on May 15 in the same court. SonoSite filed its original answer to the GE complaint on July 5, denying all of GE’s claims and alleging that GE’s asserted patents are either invalid, not infringed, or both (Medical Device Daily, July 6, 2007).

In its original counterclaim complaint, SonoSite asserted that GE and its affiliated companies infringe SonoSite’s U.S. Patent Nos. 6,569,101, “Medical Diagnostic Instrument with ECG Module, Authorization Mechanism and Methods of Use,” and 5,817,024, “Handheld Ultrasonic Diagnostic Instrument with Digital Beamformer.” In its Aug. 17 amendment, SonoSite asserts that GE and its affiliated companies also infringe SonoSite’s U.S. Patent Nos. 6,962,566, “Medical Diagnostic Ultrasound Instrument with ECG Module, Authorization Mechanism and Methods of Use,” and 6,364,839, “Ultrasound Diagnostic Instrument Having Software in Detachable Scanhead.” GE and its affiliated companies allegedly infringe SonoSite’s patents through their sales of ultrasound products, including sales of their Vivid and LOGIQ compact products and certain transducers and GE’s Vivid 7 cart-based system. SonoSite’s patents cover various core ultrasound related technologies. The complaint seeks unspecified monetary damages and a court injunction against future infringement by GE and its affiliates, according to SonoSite.

“We continue to believe that GE’s claims of patent infringement are without merit and we have now expanded our claims against them,” said Kevin Goodwin, SonoSite president/CEO. “We will continue to vigorously assert our rights.”

SonoSite calls itself the “innovator and worldwide leader” in hand-carried ultrasound. Its small, lightweight systems are expanding the use of ultrasound across the clinical spectrum by cost-effectively bringing high performance ultrasound to the point of patient care, the company said.

In other patent activity:

• Optivus Proton Therapy (San Bernardino, California) reported that IBA (Belgium) has agreed to pay $1.25 million to settle a lawsuit alleging IBA infringed on three Optivus proton therapy patents.

The settlement resolves a patent infringement and unfair business practices lawsuit filed by Optivus against IBA in August 2002. The lawsuit accused IBA of using patented Optivus proton technology in the development of a proton therapy center. In response, IBA filed various counter claims, which were all dismissed in 2004 by U.S. District Judge S James Otero.

“This is a huge milestone,” said Jon Slater, president/CEO of Optivus. “It has taken us five years to reach this point and we are very satisfied with the results.”

Optivus was formed by the engineers who designed and installed the world’s first hospital-based proton center at Loma Linda University Medical Center (Loma Linda, California). The facility commissioned and maintained by Optivus continues to blossom, and has treated more than 12,000 patients since it opened in October 1990.

Unlike other forms of radiation oncology, proton beam therapy is designed to provide the most precise and effective method of treating cancer, the company said. Proton beams can be carefully focused, sparing surrounding healthy tissue from damage and eliminating painful side effects often associated with surgery and other types of radiation therapy. That precision makes proton beam therapy ideal for treating inoperable cancers, or those in or near critical organs such as the brain, heart and spinal cord.