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Strategies & Market Trends : Steve's Channelling Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (9904)	1/7/2001 6:22:03 PM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 30051

On CRA - since it is now being played hoovershbn.newsalert.com Genome Breakthrough Was Achieved Using Competitor's Technology, Rules US Judge PR Newswire - January 04, 2001 17:01 LONDON, Jan. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- A judge in California has ruled that a key part of the technology used by Applied Biosystems Inc (NYSE: ABI) and Celera Genomics Inc (NYSE: CRA) to sequence the human genome infringes a competitor's patent. As part of a case which will proceed to full trial later this month, US District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer held that all of Applied Biosystems' Big Dye(TM) products currently sold by Applied Biosystems and used by Celera Genomics infringe the claims of US patent 5,688,648, held by Amersham Pharmacia Biotech (APBiotech), the life sciences business of Nycomed Amersham plc. These products are used on all Applied Biosystems' high throughput instruments for DNA sequencing which, together with APBiotech's MegaBACE(TM) 1000, enabled the decoding of the human genome announced by President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair in June 2000. The judge granted APBiotech summary adjudication of infringement by Applied Biosystems of its proprietary energy transfer dye labeling technology used in DNA analysis. This technology is licensed exclusively to APBiotech from the University of California, Berkeley. "This ruling vindicates our policy of vigorously defending our intellectual property assets and brings us much closer to successfully concluding this litigation", said Sir William Castell, Chief Executive, Nycomed Amersham. "Recently, there has been enormous excitement generated by developments in the field of genomics and the pace of change has been astonishing. None of this could have happened without certain key scientific discoveries, including APBiotech's enzymes, capillary sequencers and dye technologies. APBiotech's introduction of energy transfer dyes in 1996 helped transform the productivity of automated DNA sequencing. These dyes were a crucial component in the development of today's high-throughput sequencers, like the MegaBACE(TM) 1000, without which the success of the Human Genome Project and other genomics research would not have been possible," concluded Sir William. Nycomed Amersham first filed suit against Applied Biosystems to defend its patent position in November 1997. The suit was later extended to include Celera. The Court upheld Nycomed Amersham's interpretation of the claims of the patent earlier last year. The case is due to proceed to trial by jury beginning January 29, 2001. Nycomed Amersham is also making good progress with its sequencing instrumentation intellectual property actions against Applied Biosystems. Whilst the Court awarded Applied Biosystems summary judgement of non-infringement of certain APBiotech patents, the Court also ruled that APBiotech's MegaBACE(TM) system is not guilty of literal infringement of a patent held by Applied Biosystems. This patent is the only remaining instrumentation patent which Applied Biosystems asserts APBiotech to infringe, following the withdrawal of a second patent suit after allegation of inequitable conduct on the part of Applied Biosystems. In a separate action, APBiotech has alleged infringement of one of its patents by Applied Biosystems' manufacture and sale of its 3100 and 3700 DNA sequencing instruments. APBiotech, the life sciences business of Nycomed Amersham plc, is a leading provider of biotechnology systems, products and services for research into genes and proteins, for the discovery and development of drugs and for the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals. The customers for APBiotech's products and technology are pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and research and academic institutions in North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia. Nycomed Amersham (LSE: NAM; NYSE: NYE) is a world leader in "in vivo" diagnostic imaging and in life sciences. The company has annual sales of 1.3 billion Pounds Sterling and around 8,500 employees world-wide.