Genus technology ruled to be in breach of three US patents

(Sharecast News) - Genus confirmed on Tuesday that a US court had ruled that its sexing semen technology infringed three patents asserted by Inguran, LLC and Cytonome/ST.
The verdit from a jury at the US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin confirms that ABS Global, which sells the technology under the IntelliGen brand, will have to pay a royalty of $1.25 for each straw of sexed semen produced in the US because of one of the infringements.

The jury are now considering damages that flow from the infringement of the two other patents, which will be retrospective only as ABS has now modified the technology to avoid continued infringement.

The long-running dispute stems back to 2014, when the court found that that Inguran and Cytonome had wilfully maintained an illegal monopoly in the US market for sexed bovine semen processing, but also ruled that ABS had infringed US patent number 8,206,987.

A second litigation in 2017 alleged that ABS' IntelliGen technology infringed seven patents and asserted trade secret and breach of contract claims, though ABS then invalidated or demonstrated non-infringement of five of the seven patents and dismissed the trade secret and breach of contract claims.

The FTSE 250-listed company said its ABS division will continue to expand and commercialise its IntelliGen technology, providing customers with an alternative service provider, increased competition and improved fertility outcomes.

Genus shares down 0.28% at 2,822.00p at 1034 BST.