NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed an earlier judgment by a district court that Thermo Fisher Scientific's products do not infringe a patent held by Enzo Biochem, Thermo Fisher said in a regulatory filing this month.
Enzo Biochem, Enzo Life Sciences, and Yale University originally brought the suit against Life Technologies, now part of Thermo Fisher, in 2004 in the US District Court for the District of Connecticut. In their complaint, they claimed that Life Tech's labeled DNA terminators, which are used in DNA sequencing and fragment analysis, infringed their intellectual property.
In 2012, a jury awarded the plaintiffs $49 million in damages and $12 million in prejudgment interest. However, in 2015, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated the judgment and returned the case to the District Court.
In 2016, the District Court granted Thermo Fisher's motion for summary judgment of non-infringement and judged in its favor, a decision that Enzo appealed shortly afterward.
According to a recent filing by Thermo Fisher with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Circuit affirmed the District Court's judgment this month. Enzo may now seek a rehearing at the Federal Circuit or take the case to the US Supreme Court.
Thermo Fisher Scientific has maintained a $61 million accrual, pending appeals.