Labrador Diagnostics LLC is a newly (March 6, 2020) formed NPE that does not have any facilities of its own, created by Fortress Investment Group, the IP monetization entity recently acquired by SoftBank.
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Labrador claims to hold the rights to 2 patents (US Patents 8,283,155 and 10,533,994) filed 14 years ago and originally assigned to Theranos IP Company - the firm that shut down in scandal over medical testing equipment, charged with "massive fraud" by the SEC in 2018.
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BioFire is a corporation duly existing under the laws of the State of Delaware, wholly owned subsidiary of the French company bioMerieux S.A. (biomerieux.fr) and that recently launched three #Covid_19 tests.
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Few facts:
#1. On March 9, 2020 Labrador bring suit asserting their patents against BioFire.
#2. On March 11, the WHO recognizes the pandemic and bioMérieux announces launch of tests
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#1. On March 9, 2020 Labrador bring suit asserting their patents against BioFire.
#2. On March 11, the WHO recognizes the pandemic and bioMérieux announces launch of tests
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#3. On March 17, Labrador announces grant of royalty-free licenses to third parties for COVID-19 tests. Labrador also said it “had no prior knowledge of these activities by the defendants before” and that “the lawsuit was not directed to testing for COVID-19”.
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Two observations:
i. Because of the pandemic, the US government could now invoke Section 1498, making itself - rather than BioFire -the defendant in the patent lawsuit and subject, in case, the Labrador Diagnostics patents to the compulsory licensing provisions.
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i. Because of the pandemic, the US government could now invoke Section 1498, making itself - rather than BioFire -the defendant in the patent lawsuit and subject, in case, the Labrador Diagnostics patents to the compulsory licensing provisions.
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ii. Labrador announced grant of royalty-free licenses to third parties (for testing) and agreed to extend the defendants’ deadline to respond to the complaint by 3 months only after a flood of criticism and revulsion. But it might be a case of too little too late.
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