Settlements dominate this spring’s look at patent infringement litigation among instrument and lab product firms. New suits were filed targeting Luminex and microscopy companies.

New Suits

Last November, Irori Technologies, a supplier of combinatorial chemistry systems, filed suit in Southern California District Court against Luminex (see table). The complaint alleged infringement of three patents by Luminex’s xMAP and xTAG technologies. Irori describes the patents as “directed to techniques for using encoded beads for, among other applications, individually tracking molecules during chemical synthesis, in molecular assays or in high-throughput screening” and covering combinations, apparatus and methods. Irori asserts that the infringement is direct, willful and contributory, and that Luminex induced infringement. In February, the Court granted Luminex’s motion to dismiss the case but gave Irori 21 days to file an amended complaint. In March, Irori filed an amended complaint, alleging direct, induced and contributory patent infringement.

The fittingly named Super Resolution Technologies filed suit against four super-resolution microscopy (see IBO 8/31/11) companies for patent infringement. Super Resolution is owned by publicly held Acacia Research (see IBO 4/30/13). In October 2013, Acacia acquired 13 US and foreign patents on fluorescence microscopy.

The first suit, filed in October 2013 in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Dallas, alleged direct and willful infringement of US Patent No. 8,110,405 by GE Healthcare Bioscience’s OMX with Monet-localization microscopy systems, including the OMX V4 Monet, OMX V4 MX, OMX V4SI and OMX V4 Blaze. The suit sought damages and a compulsory ongoing licensing fee. In March, Acacia announced that Super Resolution had entered into a settlement and licensing agreement with GE and that the case was dismissed.

In January, Super Resolution filed separate suits against three other super-resolution microscopy companies (see table). Named in the suits as the infringing products are Carl Zeiss’s ELYRA PS.1 and ELYRA P.1, which utilize PALM (photo-activated localization microscopy); Leica Microsystems’ SR GSD and SR GSD 3D systems; and Nikon’s N-STORM systems. The initial complaints allege infringement of two patents and were amended in April to add the third patent. The Leica and Zeiss cases were filed in the Houston District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The Nikon suit was filed in the Dallas District Court. The defendants have not yet answered the complaints.

Settlements

Acacia-controlled Vertical Analytics was the plaintiff in a suit that Bruker settled last year. Bruker settled in the case involving x-ray diffraction technology (see IBO 4/30/13). In December 2013, the court dismissed the case with prejudice, and Acacia announced a settlement with Bruker AXS. Bruker also settled with Hyphenated Systems last year, according to Bruker’s 2013 10K SEC filing. Hyphenated brought a suit in California Superior Court in 2011 against the firm, related to Bruker’s acquisition of Veeco Instruments (see IBO 8/31/10).

In addition, Bruker settled a third case in which it was a defendant. In February, Bruker announced a settlement with PerkinElmer and Leland Stanford Junior University in a case brought last year involving in vivo and ex-vivo optical and x-ray imaging systems and methods (see IBO 10/31/13). The court dismissed the case with prejudice in January.

A number of other cases also settled. Molecular Devices entered into a settlement agreement with the University of Pittsburgh earlier this year (see IBO 10/31/13). The US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania dismissed the case with prejudice last month. A January court filing indicated the parties were finalizing a licensing agreement.

In January, the Delaware District Court dismissed with prejudice Cirrex Systems’ 2013 patent infringement suit against Illumina (see IBO 4/30/13). In November 2013, NanoEnTek’s 2011 suit against Bio-Rad Laboratories (see IBO 10/31/11) was dismissed following settlement talks. New England Biolabs and Soma Logic’s action against Enzymatics was dismissed without prejudice in November 2013 (see IBO 4/30/13). Earlier, Gilead Sciences was removed as a defendant after the Massachusetts District Court ruled that Gilead was an unnecessary party.

Settlements were also announced in Enzo Biochem’s string of suits. This month, the Southern New York District Court dismissed Enzo’s 2003 suit against Affymetrix (see IBO 10/31/03) (see page 11). In connection with a December 2013 ruling in a different case (see IBO 12/31/13), Enzo’s suit against Orchid Biosciences and Yale University (see IBO 10/31/02) was dismissed in January. Also, Enzo was awarded prejudgment interest of $12.4 million related to the 2012 Life Technologies trial (see IBO 11/15/12).