PerkinElmer sued Intema alleging that Intema’s Patent No. 6,573,103 directed to prenatal Down syndrome testing, was not infringed and invalid. The case was originally pending before Judge Gertner, who construed the claims. Judge Saylor ruled on a number of dispositive motions (summarized in a handy table on page 10 of the opinion), ultimately holding the patent to be invalid as anticipated and obvious. A few other interesting items were covered in the decision, including:
- Judge Saylor refused to revisit claim construction, noting that evidence which the plaintiff called “new” could actually have been obtained before the original Markman order and therefore did not warrant a new round of claim construction.
- The court ruled that the method recited in the patent was patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101, the Supreme Court’s Bilski decision, and the machine-or-transformation test.
- An article published before the patent’s critical date anticipated certain asserted claims and rendered others obvious in view of the knowledge of a person of ordinary skill in the art.
PerkinElmer, Inc. v. Intema Ltd., 09-10176-FDS (D. Mass. Aug. 12, 2011)
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