BioCentury
ARTICLE | Company News

Promega, Thermo Fisher supply/service news

February 24, 2017 9:36 PM UTC

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Life Technologies Corp. is not liable for patent infringement under U.S. law for selling Promega’s kit overseas because only one of the five components were manufactured in the U.S. Thermo Fisher acquired Life Technologies in 2014.

Life Technologies has a sublicense to Promega’s U.S. Patent No. RE 37,984 (Tautz patent), which claims a tool kit for genetic testing, for use in certain law enforcement fields worldwide. Life Technologies manufactured Taq polymerase -- one of the kit’s five components -- in the U.S. and then shipped it to the U.K. for combination with the other components. In 2010, Promega sued Life Technologies in the District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin for selling the kit outside of the licensed fields of use. Promega argued that Life Technologies was liable for patent infringement under a section of the Patent Act that prohibits the supply from the U.S. of “all or a substantial portion of the components of a patented invention” for combination abroad...