A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Competitive Technologies (CTT; Fairfield, Connecticut) reported that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LabCorp; Burlington, North Carolina) in a homocysteine patent case.

The petition for appeal was filed by LabCorp in its attempt to overcome an infringement ruling in a patent case in which CTT said its patent rights, and those of its clients, had been upheld by both a U.S. District Court and the Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit.

CTT said that recently, the U.S. Solicitor General, at the request of the Supreme Court, had investigated a single issue of patentability presented in the petition for appeal and recommended that the court deny the writ of certiorari and not hear the appeal. However, the court has decided to hear the case on that single issue, CTT said.

Paul Levitsky, CTT's vice president and general counsel, said, "We are looking forward to the positive conclusion of this matter before the U.S. Supreme Court as settled law and to serving the interests of our clients and shareholders."

The homocysteine patent was derived from discoveries made by CTT's clients, Drs. Robert Allen and Sally Stabler of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (Denver), and the late Dr. John Lindenbaum of Columbia University (New York).

CTT in 2001 reached an agreement with LabCorp in which LabCorp was to begin paying a 6% royalty on all homocysteine assays that it conducts under CTT's patent rights.

CTT reported that the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit had affirmed an earlier decision of a senior judge of the U.S. District Court in Denver that LabCorp willfully contributed to and induced infringement of the homocysteine assay patent.

CTT is a technology transfer and licensing provider focused on the life and physical sciences, nanotechnologies and electronics developed by universities, companies and inventors.

In other legalities:

Applied Biosystems (Foster City, California) said that it will record a pre-tax decrease of about $20.4 million to its previously reported first quarter FY06 results as the result of an arbitration ruling in a dispute with Amersham Biosciences (Piscataway, New Jersey).

The ruling involved the interpretation of a license agreement relating to DNA sequencing reagents and kits. Amersham had alleged, among other things, that Applied Biosystems had underpaid royalties under the license agreement.

The arbitrator awarded Amersham past damages based on an increase in royalty rates for certain DNA sequencing enzymes and kits that contain those enzymes, plus interest, fees, and costs in an amount to be determined.

This adjustment by Applied Bio will be reflected in the earnings report by its parent company, Applera (Norwalk, Connecticut), for the period ending Sept. 30, to be filed on or before Nov. 9.

This development is not currently expected to affect the group's fiscal year 2006 outlook announced on Oct. 27.

Applied Bio serves the life science industry and research community by developing and marketing instrument-based systems, consumables, software, and services. Customers use these tools to DNA and RNA, small molecules, and proteins to make scientific discoveries and develop new pharmaceuticals.

Genetic Technologies (Melbourne, Australia) said it has learned that the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, has posted a revised case schedule and order on the court's web site in connection with its patent dispute with Applera (Norwalk, Connecticut).

The order reveals that: the parties have reached a settlement "in principle," that a term sheet has been executed by the parties and submitted to the court, that the parties are finalizing a binding settlement agreement and associated documents, and that the parties anticipate that the documents will be signed by Nov. 9.

Genetic Technologies said that the order simply records the progress being made to settle the dispute and that a final settlement has not been reached.

Genetic Technologies said it is the first company to recognize new applications for "non-coding" DNA. The company has since been granted patents in 24 countries, securing intellectual property rights for particular uses of non-coding DNA in genetic analysis and gene mapping across all genes in all multicellular species.