Court Denies Competitor's Motion for Summary Judgment That Oncor's Unique Sequence Probes, Including HER-2/neu, Infringe Patent, But Grants Competitor's Motion for Summary Judgment on Novelty and Non-Obviousness.GAITHERSBURG, Md.--(BW HealthWire)--Aug. 29, 1997--Oncor, Inc. (AMEX AMEX See: American Stock Exchange : ONC (Open Network Computing) A family of networking products from Sun for implementing distributed computing in a multivendor environment. Includes TCP/IP and OSI protocols, NFS distributed file system, NIS naming service and TI-RPC remote procedure call library. ) announced today that the U.S. District Court in San Francisco issued a summary judgment order in a pre-trial proceeding relating to a patent infringement patent infringement n. the manufacture and/or use of an invention or improvement for which someone else owns a patent issued by the government, without obtaining permission of the owner of the patent by contract, license or waiver. suit brought by Vysis, Inc. and the University of California The University of California has a combined student body of more than 191,000 students, over 1,340,000 living alumni, and a combined systemwide and campus endowment of just over $7.3 billion (8th largest in the United States). against Oncor. The Court denied a motion for summary judgment motion for summary judgment n. a written request for a judgment in the moving party's favor before a lawsuit goes to trial and based on recorded (testimony outside court) affidavits (or declarations under penalty of perjury), depositions, admissions of fact, answers brought by the plaintiffs that Oncor's unique sequence probes infringe a patent issued to the University of California in September 1995. The Court did, however, grant the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment on novelty and non-obviousness with respect to the patent at issue. While the Court denied Oncor's motion for summary judgment on unenforceability, the Court has left open the issue of whether the patent in question may have been procured fraudulently and may not have set forth the best mode for practice. The Court also ruled that, absent an ultimate finding of invalidity and unenforceability in favor of Oncor based on these issues, the Company's Coatosome(TM) products, which represent less than approximately 5% of consolidated sales, would infringe the patent in question. Oncor's Chairman, Stephen Turner, said, "We are pleased that our strategic molecular diagnostic developments, including the INFORM(TM) HER-2/neu Gene Amplification Gene amplification The process by which a cell specifically increases the copy number of a particular gene to a greater extent than it increases the copy number of genes composing the remainder of the genome (all the genes which make up the genetic machinery Detection System, are unaffected by the Court's decision." Mr. Turner went on to say, "The Company is confident of its position on the various remaining issues relating to invalidity and unenforceability and intends to vigorously pursue various legal alternatives." Oncor develops, manufactures and markets gene-based test systems and related products for use in the detection and management of cancer and other human disease. Additional information may be obtained at http://www.oncor.com. -0- This press release contains statements of a forward-looking nature regarding future events. These statements are only predictions and actual events may differ materially. Please refer to documents that Oncor files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a discussion of certain factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. CONTACT: Porter, Le Vay & Rose, Inc., New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Martin Skala John Chuhran, Media Consultant 212/564-4700 or Oncor Inc., Gaithersburg Stephen Turner, Chairman Cecil Kost, Chief Operating Officer Chief Operating Officer (COO) The officer of a firm responsible for day-to-day management, usually the president or an executive vice-president. John Coker, Chief Financial Officer 301/963-3500 |
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