BioGenex wins noninfringement decision against Ventana

BioGenex prevailed in a patent infringement case after more than two-and-a-half years of litigation in federal court against Ventana Medical Systems. The United States District Court for the District of Arizona recently entered the ruling in favor of BioGenex in a patent infringement litigation between the two companies. Judge Raner C. Collins of the District Court in Tucson ruled that the BioGenex automated staining systems do not infringe Ventana's US Patent No. 6,352,861 (the '861 Patent) issued in March 2002. The '861 Patent to Ventana contains claims for a method of dispensing of reagents onto a slide; the first claim recites:

A method of dispensing reagents onto a slide, the method comprising the steps of:

providing at least one reagent container;

providing at least one slide on a slide support;

automatically identifying the reagent container using a computer;

automatically determining whether reagent in the reagent container should be dispensed onto the slide; and

dispensing the reagent in the reagent container onto the slide based on the determination of whether the reagent in the reagent container should be dispensed onto the slide,

wherein the step of automatically determining whether reagent in the reagent container should be dispensed onto the slide includes the steps of:

providing a bar code reader;

reading a slide bar code placed on the slide using the bar code reader thereby acquiring slide information, the slide information indicating reagents to be applied to the slide; and

sending the slide information to the computer.

The '861 patent claims earlier priority: This is a continuation of application Ser. No. 08/906,678, filed Aug. 5, 1997, pending, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 08/479,415, filed Jun. 6, 1995, U.S. Pat. No. 5,654,200, which is a division of application Ser. No. 08/352,966, filed Dec. 9, 1994, U.S. Pat. No. 5,595,707, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 07/924,052, filed Aug. 31, 1992, abandoned, which is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 07/488,601, filed Mar. 2, 1990, abandoned.

The '861 patent has been cited by ten (10) US patents. The '861 was prepared by McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff.