Invitrogen and Agilent settle patent suits.

Carlsbad and Santa Clara, CA 2/5/08 -- Invitrogen and Agilent have reached a confidential agreement to settle three lawsuits. Stratagene, which Agilent acquired last year (see IBO 4/15/07), was a party in all three suits. Under the agreement, Agilent will make a payment to Invitrogen for an undisclosed amount and discontinue sales of RNase H minus reverse transcriptase products. This agreement stems from a 2000 suit filed by Invitrogen against Stratagene for infringement of three patents related to RNase H minus reverse transcriptase products (US Patent Nos. 6,063,608; 5,244,797; 5,405,776). In addition, under the settlement, Invitrogen will obtain a license to Agilent's DNA polymerase blend products and pay a royalty fee. In 2001, Stratagene sued Invitrogen for infringement of its patent related to the sale of certain DNA polymerase blend products (US Patent No. 5,556,772). The third suit was Invitrogen's 2001 action against Stratagene for infringement of a patent covering a process for producing E. coli cells for more effectively absorbing foreign DNA (US Patent No. 4,981,797), for which Invitrogen was awarded $16.2 million and additional fees in a 2006 trial (see IBO 11/15/06).

The suit involving US Patent No. 4,981,797 was under appeal. Following the acquisition of Stratagene, Agilent has acted quickly to settle the acquired company's litigation, which also included a dispute with Applied Biosystems (see IBO 9/30/07).