The court ruled in SonoSite’s favor on five of the six patents that GE had asserted. The court ruled that one of GE’s patents is invalid and that SonoSite products do not infringe the other four GE patents.
Following the trial court’s summary judgment rulings, the parties agreed to dismiss the remaining claims, thereby resolving the entirety of the case in the district court and negating the need for a trial. The parties have retained their rights to appeal the trial court’s decisions of last week.
GE filed the second patent lawsuit against SonoSite in the same federal district court in Madison, Wisconsin seeking to invalidate SonoSite’s US patent relating to digital ultrasound weighing less than 10 pounds. That case is scheduled for trial in June 2009.
Kevin Goodwin, president and CEO of SonoSite, said: “As with this first lawsuit, we strongly believe that there is no legal basis for a second lawsuit that GE filed against us this year in May. We will proceed firmly ahead to defend our legal rights.”