A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

InSite One (Wallingford, Connecticut), a developer of digital medical image archiving and storage services for U.S. healthcare, reported that it has filed a claim for patent infringement against National Digital Medical Archive (NDMA) and i3 Archive (both Berwyn, Pennsylvania).

In its papers, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, InSite One alleges that NDMA and i3 infringe U.S. Patent No. 6,574,742 (the ‘742 patent), relating to the offsite storage and management of digital images. InSite One asserts that both NDMA and i3 are inducing their customers to infringe on this patent.

InSite One seeks an injunction to halt both NDMA and i3 from offering their services to present and future customers and for payment of damages.

Prior to filing the patent infringement claim, InSite One contacted NDMA and i3 to discuss their services and InSite One's patent. It said that NDMA and i3 responded by filing a lawsuit for declaratory judgment of non-infringement and invalidity of the ‘742 patent.

James Champagne, president/CEO of InSite One, said, "As a leading innovator of offsite storage technology for the medical field, we believe competition is a way to foster the growth of the market. However, we must take action against companies that attempt to profit from our innovation by infringing our intellectual property that we have worked hard and at such expense to develop. We have invested significant financial and other resources in the development of our technology and we will work aggressively to protect that investment."

InSite One is the developer of a suite of InDex Web-enabled archiving services combining on-and off-site storage with built-in disaster recovery. InDex integrates with any PACS, hospital network and digital modality via DICOM In other legalities:

HemoCue (Angelhorn, Sweden/Lake Forest) reported that since 2003 it has been involved in a patent feud with EKF/Stanbio (Magdeburg, Germany/Boeme, Texas), charging infringement by an EKF/Stanbio product and that one of HemoCue's patents has been questioned as to validity.

HemoCue said that "as a first step," the U.S. patent office ruled that the claims in HemoCue's patent are unpatentable. As a second step, it said it will now present its arguments.

"This was an expected outcome based on arguments submitted by EKF that, at this stage in the process, the Patent Office accepted at face value," said Don DuBois, general manager of HemoCue (Lake Forest, California), the company's U.S. operation. "The patent office has not yet considered HemoCue's arguments, which we are confident will provide a strong basis for the patent office to hold that the claims are indeed patentable."

DuBois said that HemoCue was not surprised that EKF initiated the reexamination process after EKF and Stanbio were accused of infringement.

"We expected this move . . . and are confident that the validity of our patent will be confirmed. We will continue to aggressively enforce all of our patented technology against those who manufacture or sell infringing products."

HemoCue recently received and enforced a judgment in a German Federal Court against EKF, which held that the German counterpart to the patent undergoing reexamination was infringed. EKF was enjoined from manufacturing and selling microcuvettes covered by the patent in Germany. That case is in appeal. As with the process in the U.S., final conclusions can only be drawn once the legal processes have come to their respective completion.

The HemoCue technology allows common blood tests at the point-of-care with, it says, "lab-quality" results.

HemoCue is owned by EQT (Helsinki, Finland/ Stockholm, Sweden), a private equity group in Northern Europe.