NEW YORK – A jury has ruled in favor of defendants Hologic, Grifols, and Grifols Diagnostic Solutions in a patent infringement lawsuit filed by BioMérieux, according to a judgement filed on Monday with the US District Court in Delaware.
In February 2017, BioMérieux had sued for infringement of two patents associated with its HIV-1 nucleic acid test technology.
The patent infringement litigation was associated with Hologic’s transcription-mediated amplification technology used in products sold by Hologic and Grifols relating to HIV detection, Jane Mazur, a Hologic spokesperson, said in an email. "As a result of this ruling, Hologic and Grifols do not owe any damages to BioMérieux and may continue to sell, service, and support the affected Aptima and Procleix products without restriction," she said.
In the original complaint filed with the Delaware court, Marcy-l'Étoile, France-based BioMérieux said that it had "achieved a breakthrough" in identifying nucleotide sequences derived from a part of the HIV-1 genome. When used in primer sets with a transcription-based amplification technique, the nucleotide sequences were "capable of detecting nearly all known HIV-1 subtypes," the firm said.
"The resulting methods were much more sensitive than methods disclosed in the prior art, and delivered results much faster," according to BioMérieux.
The firm protected its inventions by obtaining several US and foreign patents including US Patent Nos. 8,697,352 and 9,074,262.
BioMérieux alleged that it was not until after publication of the first application in the relevant patent family that Gen-Probe, which Hologic acquired in 2012, "began making, using, offering for sale, and selling in the United States the inventions claimed in the asserted patents." The defendants "currently make, use, offer for sale, and/or sell infringing products in the United States," it added.
Among other forms of relief, BioMérieux sought damages for lost profits "but in no event less than a reasonable royalty on past and future infringing sales."
A court trial that began on Feb. 18 led to the jury verdict on Feb. 25.
According to the court document filed on Monday, it is "not a final judgment, and instead serves to trigger the time for filing post-trial motions on issues that were decided by the jury."
BioMérieux and Grifols did not respond to requests for comments on deadline.