NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) - A federal jury late last week awarded Innogenetics $7 million in damages after unanimously finding Abbott Laboratores guilty of willfully infringing an Innogenetics patent covering a method of genotyping the hepatitis C virus.
The judge in the case can increase the award to up to three times the $7 million determined by the jury, Innogenetics said, because Abbott was found to have willfully infringed.
The jury decided the case in favor of Innogenetics earlier in the month.
Innogenetics said it will seek an injunction against Abbott diagnostic products that infringe on the patent, US No. 5,846,704, and pursue other remedies.
The case was tried in US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin.
Jonathon Hamilton, a spokesman for Abbott, told GenomeWeb News that the company continues to believe the patent is not valid and will continue evaluating its legal options.
Innogenetics filed suit against Abbott and Third Wave Technologies in September 2005 for infringing the '704 patent, which protects a process for typing HCV isolates.
Third Wave and Innogenetics settled in February 2006. Under the terms of the settlement, Third Wave took a non-exclusive license to sell Innogenetics' HCV genotyping products and the option to extend the license to the entire HCV patent estate.