ZENON Clears Hurdle in Lawsuit with USFilter

The United States District Court for the Southern District of California has ruled that United States Patent No. 6,620,319 (the '319 patent), the subject of a patent infringement suit brought by ZENON against USFilter, continues to be presumed valid.

On October 8, 2003 ZENON filed a patent infringement action against USFilter complaining of infringement of three ZENON owned patents relating to water treatment, most importantly, the '319 patent relating to membrane module construction. In the course of these proceedings, USFilter among other things, alleged the invalidity of the '319 patent which if successful would have affected other patents in the same patent family. The parties recently agreed to a bench trial on the issue of the validity of the '319 patent. The trial was conducted in San Diego on April 27-28, 2005. A ruling from the Court was delivered on May 5, 2005 in which the Court ruled in favor of ZENON strongly refuting all of defendant USFilter's contentions.MO< MO

While the infringement of the 319 patent is no longer an immediate issue due to an adverse ruling made in November of 2004 (which ZENON will appeal), ZENON filed a further patent infringement action against US Filter on January 11, 2005, on its United States Patent No. 6,682,652 (the 652 patent) which is part of the same family as the 319 patent. The 652 patent is now the primary focus of ZENONs infringement action and the merits of that case are greatly strengthened on the basis of this ruling. A full trial on the 652 patent is expected in 2006.

Source: ZENON