Plaintiff Promega Corporation (“Promega”) filed an action against Life Technologies Corporation, Applied Biosystems, LLC and Invitrogen IP Holdings, Inc. for infringing and inducing infringement of five patents pertaining to copying of sequences of a DNA strand. In a previous licensing agreement, Life Technologies and Applied Biosystems were permitted to sell the Promega patented products within certain fields. Promega asserted that the defendants were making and selling the products into unpermitted fields, such as clinical diagnostics, clinical research and research markets. The jury agreed with Promega and awarded more than $50 million in damages.
Promega filed a motion to enhance damages, for attorneys and costs and a permanent injunction. The defendants filed a motion asserting that they were entitled to judgment in their favor based on their equitable defenses and also because Promega failed to prove its affirmative case.
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