A Medical Device Daily

Home Diagnostics (Fort Lauderdale, Florida), a manufacturer of diabetes testing supplies, reported that on March 2, the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division, ruled in its favor concerning non-infringement, and it denied the motion by Roche Diagnostics, Roche Diagnostics Operations and Corange International for a summary Judgment in the patent infringement lawsuit concerning the TrueTrack Smart System and TrackEASE Smart System.

Roche alleged that the TrueTrack and TrackEASE blood glucose monitors infringe on U.S. Patent No. 5,366,609, relating to a biosensing blood glucose monitor with a pluggable memory module.

J. Richard Damron Jr, president/CEO of Home Diagnostics, said the ruling validates “our long-standing position that the lawsuit was without merit.”

Home Diagnostics manufactures testing supplies, its portfolio of blood glucose monitors spanning the spectrum from standard to advanced systems,

In other legalities:

The law firm of Makarem & Associates reported that the California Unemployment Appeals Board has ruled against Applied DNA Sciences (APDN; Stony Brook, New York) in its effort to disqualify three former employees from receiving unemployment insurance benefits under the California Unemployment Insurance Code.

“Two of the three former executives worked for several months without pay, out of loyalty to the company and promises based on supposedly groundbreaking technology provided by Biowell Technologies of Taiwan, and the third remained in employment limbo,” said Peter Kunstler, attorney for the claimants. “After terminating the employees without explanation, APDN claimed that the employees were separated from their jobs because of fraudulent activity. The Appeals Board agreed that fraud and collusion are false charges. We believe the terminations actually resulted from an array of breaches by both old and new management.”

Kunstler said he is preparing for the May 2007 trial of a civil suit against APDN on behalf of four former employees, based on breach of contract and violations of California Labor Law.

APDN says it is developing botanical DNA-based protection against counterfeiting, fraud, identity theft and similar illegal acts.