Stratagene to appeal verdict won by Third Wave

Stratagene to appeal verdict won by Third Wave

La Jolla, Calif. — Stratagene Corp. will appeal the jury verdict that Madison-based Third Wave Technologies won against the California company last week.
Stratagene on Saturday announced its move in response to the decision rendered last Wednesday in the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. The jury awarded Third Wave $5.29 million in damages.
Stratagene said in a news release that it “believes that the jury’s verdict and the damages awarded were not supported by the facts of the case.”
Stratagene is a developer, manufacturer and marketer of specialized life science research and diagnostic products.
The jury determined that Third Wave’s 6,090,543 and 6,348,314 patents are valid and that certain embodiments of Stratagene’s FullVelocity technology infringed those patents. The sales by Stratagene of products incorporating those embodiments have been less than $400,000 since inception, the company reported in the news release.
Other details of the decision, including the possibility of an injunction on sales of certain FullVelocity products, and a motion filed by Stratagene pertaining to jurisdictional issues are being considered by the judge presiding over the case.
The timing of a final judgment has not yet been determined.
Stratagene intends to file its appeal in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. once a final judgment has been entered by the district court.
In addition to appealing the verdict, Stratagene will be seeking to have the damages amount reduced or eliminated.
Earlier this year, Stratagene served Third Wave with the lawsuit alleging infringement of Stratagene’s patents covering its proprietary FullVelocity technology for the quantitative detection of nucleic acids. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware and seeks monetary damages as well as a permanent injunction against Third Wave for the sale of its Invader Plus products.