Enzo Awarded Damages in Life Technologies Case
The jury found that Applied Biosystems (Life Technologies) directly infringed and induced infringement of five patent claims and found contributory infringement of one patent claim. However, the jury found Applied Biosystems’ infringement was not willful. The award amount was based on a calculation of royalty damages for reagent products.
New York, NY 11/2/12; Carlsbad, CA 11/1/12—Enzo Biochem has announced that a jury in the US Southern District Court in New York City has awarded the company and Yale University $48.6 million in direct infringement penalties after finding that Life Technologies’ sale of capillary electrophoresis systems and reagents from 1998 to 2004 infringed US Patent No. 5,449,767 (Modified Polynucleotides and Methods of Preparing Same) (see IBO 10/31/11). The patent, which expired in 2004, related to compounds used with DNA sequencing systems. Regarding the award, Life Technologies stated: “The company strongly disagrees with the verdict and intends to vigorously challenge it in the trial court and on appeal.” In connection with the award, Life Technologies recorded a charge of $48.5 million for the third quarter, which lowered GAAP net income by 32.3% to $65.9 million. On a diluted basis, GAAP EPS were reduced from $0.55 to $0.37.
