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Court Rules in Favor of Hologic's Gen-Probe in Patent Infringement Suit with BD

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Hologic said today that it has received a favorable ruling in the patent infringement lawsuit filed by subsidiary Gen-Probe against Becton Dickinson.

In a decision handed down last week by the US District Court for the Southern District of California, Gen-Probe was granted summary judgment motions of direct infringement. Specifically, the court ruled that BD's ProbeTec Qx CT/GC assays for chlamydia and gonorrhea on the BD Viper system with XTR technology and its GBS assays on the BD Max system infringe three of Gen-Probe's patents covering automated nucleic acid testing.

Hologic said that the court also granted summary judgment that BD's specimen collection products, used in conjunction with its ProbeTec Qx CT/GC assays, infringe another Gen-Probe patent covering penetrable caps.

Further, the court denied BD's summary judgment motion to dismiss Gen-Probe's infringement claims based on an alleged lack of standing to sue, as well as BD's summary judgment motions seeking to invalidate the asserted patents, Hologic said.

The court also ruled that BD did not infringe a fourth automation patent and a second penetrable cap patent.

A jury trial on remaining issues is scheduled to begin on Dec. 4. These remaining issues include whether BD is liable for inducing its customers to infringe Gen-Probe's patents; whether BD's infringement was willful; the monetary damages owed Gen-Probe; and challenges by BD to Gen-Probe's standing to sue and the validity of the patents.

Hologic said that Gen-Probe is requesting the court triple the monetary damages and enter a permanent injunction to prevent further infringement.

Gen-Probe originally filed its patent infringement suit against BD in October 2009. Hologic agreed in April to acquire Gen-Probe for $3.7 billion, a transaction that closed on Aug. 1.

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