A Medical Device Daily

Innogenetics (Gent, Belgium) reported that a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin has ruled that Abbott Laboratories (Abbott Park, Illinois) willfully infringed Innogenetics U.S. Patent No. 5,846,704 (the '704 patent), covering a method of genotyping the Hepatitis C Virus (HCV).

Innogentics said that the verdict directs Abbott to pay Innogenetics $7 million for infringement damages to date. That award may be increased up to three times the $7 million amount because the jury determined willful infringement.

Innogenetics said it will seek an injunction against Abbott diagnostic products that infringe the '704 patent and pursue “other available remedies.”

“This is a landmark victory for Innogenetics and possibly for other innovators like us out there,” said Frank Morich, CEO of Innogenetics. “This win . . . provides compensation for this major infringement — but perhaps just as importantly it says that being a large, global company does not entitle you to willfully disregard intellectual property laws without consequence.”

Innogenetics brought suit against Abbott, in September 2005, alleging the infringement. Early this month a jury returned a unanimous verdict that Innogenetics '704 patent was valid in all its aspects, a follow-on to determine damages and whether the infringement had been willful.

Innogenetics bills itself as a biopharmaceutical company building businesses in specialty diagnostics and therapeutic vaccines, with 2005 revenues of EUR 48.6 million. Its Diagnostics Division develops specialty products covering infectious diseases, genetic testing and neurodegeneration.

In other legalities:

• AngioDynamics (Queensbury, New York) commented on a decision in the U.S. District Court for Delaware concerning a declaratory judgment action it brought vs. Diomed (Andover, Massachusetts) but unrelated to ongoing litigation brought by Diomed against AngioDynamics and others regarding the '777 patent.

AngioDynamics said that on Sept. 7, U.S. District Judge Gregory Sleet denied its request to bring a declaratory judgment action against Diomed regarding two patents (U.S. patent Nos. 6,981,971 and 6,986,766) recently issued to Diomed, relating to a medical device and method that include graduated markings along a sheath. AngioDynamics brought the case in January 2006, due to concerns that Diomed would wrongly sue AngioDynamics for infringement regarding the AngioDynamics VenaCure product.

If the court had granted the request, the case would have proceeded to trial, providing AngioDynamics with an opportunity to prove these patents are invalid.

However, the court denied AngioDynamics' request to bring action at this time, finding there was no sufficient evidence of a threat of litigation by Diomed, hence no basis for the case to proceed.

“While we are disappointed that the court chose not to hear this case at this time, we are very confident that if any action is initiated against AngioDynamics by Diomed regarding these patents, the patents will be proven invalid in light of very significant prior art and other factors,” said Eamonn Hobbs, president/CEO of AngioDynamics.

AngioDynamics manufactures the VenaCure endovascular laser venous system, as an alternative for treating severe varicose veins.