By Donald Zuhn --
On Tuesday, Invitrogen Corporation and Clontech Laboratories, Inc. jointly announced that the two companies had reached a settlement in a patent litigation battle that had been begun more than 11 years earlier. Invitrogen had initiated the lawsuit when it filed a complaint against Clontech in December of 1996 in the District Court of Maryland, asserting that Clontech infringed Invitrogen's U.S. Patent Nos. 5,244,797; 5,405,776; 5,668,005; 6,063,608. Two weeks ago, on May 17, Invitrogen secured a unanimous verdict from the Maryland jury.
As part of the settlement, Clontech, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Takara Bio Inc., has agreed that the four patents-in-suit are valid and enforceable. In addition, Clontech has agreed to discontinue sales of its RNase H minus RT products, including its PowerScript products, until Invitrogen's patents expire. No other details of the settlement were announced.
The patents-in-suit encompass a polypeptide having DNA polymerase activity and substantially no RNase H activity ('797 patent), an isolated DNA molecule encoding such a polypeptide ('005 patent), an isolated "DNA compound" encoding such a polypeptide ('776 patent), and an isolated polypeptide having DNA polymerase activity and substantially reduced RNase H activity ('608 patent).
Commenting on the length of the lawsuit, Invitrogen's trial counsel Robert J. Koch of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP noted that "[t]he complexity of the underlying science combined with the multiple patents and number of claims involved, contributed to the duration of the litigation" (see "Patent Infringement Victory for Invitrogen"). Over the course of the litigation, the parties had engaged in three District Court battles and had taken three appeals to the Federal Circuit.
For additional information regarding the settlement, please see:
- Invitrogen's press release
- Clontech's press release
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