$35 Million Award for Patent Infringement

The United States District Court has granted the motion of Roche Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) to enhance damages and award attorney fees in its long-running patent dispute with MJ Research, Inc., now owned by Bio-Rad Laboratories (Hercules, CA). The case, brought in conjunction with Applied Biosystems (Foster City, CA, USA), may now be closed.

After finding the patent infringement to be willful, the Court doubled the damages originally awarded by a jury to Roche and Applied Biosystems, for a total of U.S.$35,442,000. The Court noted that "substantial attorney fees will be awarded in the case,” instructing co-plaintiffs Roche and Applied Biosystems to submit their claims for reasonable attorney fees and costs within 30 days.

"We are very pleased with the Court's decision and believe the ruling speaks for itself,” said Heino von Prondzynski, CEO, Roche Diagnostics, and member of the Executive Committee.

In December 2004 the Court granted Roche Diagnostics and Applied Biosystems a summary judgment on the antitrust counterclaims filed by MJ Research. The counterclaims, scheduled to be heard by a jury in January 2005, were subsequently dismissed.

This ruling followed an April 2004 jury verdict in which MJ Research and its principals, Michael and John Finney, were found guilty of willfully inducing customers to infringe key Roche patents covering polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology. They also found MJ Research and its principals guilty of infringing Applied Biosystem patents relating to thermal cycler instrument technology.

The original suit was filed in 1998. The lead inventor of the Roche patents in the suit, Dr. Kary Mullis, was awarded the Nobel Prize for developing PCR technology.