Genus' long-running legal battle with Sexing Technologies rumbles on

The long-running legal battle between animal genetics specialist Genus and US rival Sexing Technologies' owner Inguran rumbles on, with the UK company accused of infringing patents and breaching trade secrets.

Genus said it intends to vigorously defend itself against new litigation in the US, as rival ST filed patent infringement proceedings against Genus and its subsidiaries ABS Global and Premium Genetics in a Wisconsin district court, alleging that ABS infringed seven ST patents and asserted trade secret and breach of contract claims.

In April in the same western district of Wisconsin, Genus won its litigation case against ST and Inguran, with a court removed various contractual restrictions that had been blocking the way for Genus subsidiary ABS Global to commercially launch the Genus Sexed Semen (GSS) programme.

GSS, is a proprietary product Genus has designed to compete with ST's monopoly in the processing of sexed bovine semen.

The UK company noted that in April's results, where it launched litigation against ST, the court awarded ABS a permanent injunction against ST based on the finding that ST had wilfully maintained an illegal monopoly in the market for sexed bovine semen processing in the US since July 2012, and had found ABS had infringed two ST patents and awarded damages and post judgment royalties.

"ABS has filed a notice of appeal on one of these patents and an Inter-Partes Review oral hearing at the US Patent Office is scheduled shortly on the other. The US Patent Office had earlier found two other ST patents challenged by ABS to be unpatentable," it confirmed.

"GSS is a novel and proprietary technology for sexing bovine semen that focuses on fertility outcomes and does not subject the sperm cells to the high pressures and sheer forces of the technology currently in use in the industry.

"The new litigation will not delay the commercial launch of GSS which will launch as scheduled in 2017 in the US and other key markets," the FTSE 250 company said.