In Brief: Vysis v. Oncor
This article was originally published in The Gray Sheet
Executive Summary
Oncor will not contest during an April hearing in the U.S. District Court of San Francisco that its sequence fluorescence in situ hybridization probes for analysis of chromosome preparations (in metaphase) infringe a University of California patent (No. 5,447,841), rights to which are licensed exclusively by Vysis. Instead, Oncor maintains that the patent is "invalid and unenforceable" and the court will not rule in Vysis' favor. In addition, Oncor "does not concede infringement of Oncor's Inform HER-2/neu gene detection system," which involves analysis of nuclei of whole cells. Vysis, which employs the technology in its fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) probes, maintains that Oncor concedes in a recent letter to the court that its products contain repetitive sequences of DNA, "a concession that will make it far easier for Vysis to prove use of the products infringes the patent"...