Illumina urges court to overturn DNA patent verdict
Biotech company Illumina has asked a Delaware court to overturn a finding that it willfully infringed two DNA sequencing patents and must pay $334 million in damages.
In a brief filed on Friday, June 3, Illumina asked District Judge Maryellen Noreika of the US District Court for the District of Delaware to either grant it judgment as a matter of law or order a new trial.
In May, a jury concluded that Illumina had infringed US patent numbers 9,222,132 and 10,662,473, both of which are owned by California-based Complete Genomics Inc (a subsidiary of BGI Genomics) and cover DNA sequencing. Illumina was also ordered to pay $334 million in damages.
"The enormous verdict in this case deserves to be overturned both because the jury’s liability finding is unsustainable and the size of the damage award is indefensible. Post-trial motions are critical to protect against exactly such jury trial outcomes,” said Illumina in its brief.
In addition to arguing that the finding of infringement conflicted with the court’s claim construction, llumina said the Complete Genomics’ damages theory had been “adopted wholesale by the jury” but was based on the faulty opinions of BGI’s damages expert.
llumina also argued that the damages expert had promoted a royalty theory “infected by unsupportable assumptions” and that the damages theory for foreign sales was also faulty.
Finally, Illumina argued that a new trial was warranted because the Delaware court’s “severe time-sanction against Illumina was unjustified and unfairly prejudicial”.
The brief said that despite the parties agreeing that a witness would need to provide testimony by April 29, BGI then refused to allow the witness to be called out of turn.
“The court sanctioned Illumina four hours of time and awarded BGI more time. This caused Illumina to truncate examinations and drop witnesses. BGI exploited this by continually reminding the jury of the missing witnesses. The court’s later restoration of some time, while appreciated, could not repair the damage,” said Illumina.
Concluding, Illumina said that if the court doesn’t grant judgment as a matter of law, it should grant a new trial because the “verdict is against the clear weight of the evidence and a new trial is warranted out of fairness”.
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