>>BILLERICA, Mass.--(BW HealthWire)--Aug. 30, 2001--Bruker Daltonics Inc. (NASDAQ: BDAL - news) and Thermo Finnigan Corporation, a business of Thermo Electron Corporation (NYSE: TMO - news), today announced a comprehensive settlement agreement in their litigation in the U.S. and Europe.
The worldwide settlement agreement announced today provides for the dismissal of all pending suits, the waiving of all damages, and a framework of licensing and arbitration for potential future patent disputes between the companies in the field of ion trap mass spectrometry (ITMS). The settlement allows both companies, as well as their distributors and Bruker Daltonics' strategic partner Agilent, to sell their unmodified ITMS systems again in Germany effective immediately. Bruker Daltonics and Thermo Finnigan also have cross-licensed each other worldwide under all patents in suit for all ITMS fields of use, except gas chromatography (GC) coupled to ITMS.
``We are pleased that we have been able to settle our differences,'' said Frank H. Laukien, Ph.D., President and CEO of Bruker Daltonics. ``First and foremost, our customers will benefit from having competitive choices without concerns about patent infringement. Moreover, we believe that this will even further enhance the significant role of ion trap mass spectrometry in proteomics and other applications. Finally, both companies will be able to spend less money on litigation, and instead can focus more resources on R&D, new life-science applications, and customer support.'' <<
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Cheers, Tuck |
