Looks like the fight is on. Here is an article in today's financial post.
For Wednesday, August 18, 1999
It's David and Goliath in Xillix v. Olympus lawsuit
Long fight expected
By JOHN SCHREINER
The Financial Post
VANCOUVER - Forty of the 55 employees of Xillix Technologies Corp., a developer of devices for diagnosing cancer, have been laid off or have left as the company conserves cash for a protracted legal battle with Olympus Optical Co. of Japan over alleged theft of intellectual property.
"We're keeping a core group that know the technology very well," said Pierre Leduc, the president. "We've put certain things in place to retain them."
Xillix announced last month that it had suspended a five-year-old distribution and development agreement with the Japanese company.
It also accused Olympus of secretly filing patents in competition with Xillix.
"The authors of the Olympus patent applications were the same Olympus employees who were involved in the Xillix joint-development project," the Richmond-based company says on a Web site specially created for the dispute.
Under the terms of the agreement, the dispute will be arbitrated in Japan but the remedies will be governed by the law in British Columbia.
Olympus has made no public response to the Xillix allegations.
The dispute is very much a David and Goliath fight. Formed in 1919, Olympus had 1998 sales of $2.6-billion (US). Xillix, formed in 1990, had sales last year of $7.4-million. It currently has about $7-million in cash in its treasury and Mr. Leduc wants to hoard that, both for a legal battle that he expects will run at least a year, and to look for new partners.
"We want to make sure when the finish line is in sight that we're still in the race," he said.
Xillix was formed to develop and commercialize diagnostic instruments that had been conceived at the B.C. Cancer Agency. The devices developed by Xillix enable doctors to detect cancerous and pre-cancerous cells by exposing the tissues to light.
Applications include lung cancers, head and neck cancers and gynecological cancers. About 130 Xillix units are in use in clinics in North America, Europe and Japan, and the company intends to continue giving support to those installations while it tries to resolve the dispute. However, clinical testing of second-generation devices has been halted.
The company negotiated the agreement with Olympus because the Japanese firm already commands 70% of the world market for endoscopy devices, as the technology is called.
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