USFilter Corporation announced today that Zenon Environmental, Inc. (“Zenon") has dropped several of its claims in the patent infringement lawsuit pending in federal district court in San Diego.
In November, the court ruled on the scope of certain claims in the three Zenon patents. As a result of that ruling, Zenon has dropped all claims for monetary damages, all claims for infringement under one of the three patents, and all claims for infringement against USFilter Memcor's CMF-S microfiltration technology.
For the second patent, Zenon is now only alleging infringement by two pilot plants operated briefly in 2001 and 2002. For the third patent, Zenon alleges infringement of a single patent claim by a single system. USFilter said that motions for summary judgment were filed last month seeking dismissal of the remaining infringement claims. Hearings on those motions are expected to occur in early 2005.
In a related action, USFilter announced that counterclaims for inequitable conduct were filed Jan. 12 against Zenon in the pending litigation. The 26-page counterclaim alleges that Zenon made misleading statements before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and knowingly and intentionally failed to disclose an extensive amount of material information to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in order to obtain allowance of the three patents-in-suit.
The counterclaims seek a variety of relief, including a judicial declaration that the patents-in-suit as well as a number of related Zenon patents are invalid and unenforceable.
Source: USFilter
