SmartWater Technology drops patent infringement case over concerns about the financial health of Applied DNA Sciences, Inc.
SmartWater Technology (“SmartWater”), leaders in forensic technology products and services, announced today that it has dropped its patent infringement lawsuit against Applied DNA Sciences, Inc. (“ADNAS”). SmartWater had filed its lawsuit against ADNAS in 2012, asserting that ADNAS’ products and services were infringing two of SmartWater’s patents: U.S. Patent Nos. 5,605,650 and 5,811,152. While SmartWater remained confident in the merits of its claims that its patents had been infringed by ADNAS, SmartWater decided to drop the lawsuit based on SmartWater’s concerns about ADNAS’ financial condition, as disclosed in ADNAS’ financial reporting to the US Securities & Exchange Commission in May of this year, which made it unlikely that ADNAS would have sufficient financial resources to pay any judgment SmartWater might obtain in the litigation, which was not scheduled to conclude until 2015 at the earliest. Accordingly, on June 11, 2014, SmartWater filed a motion to dismiss its claims, and also sought to dismiss ADNAS’ counterclaims. ADNAS opposed SmartWater’s motion, and sought to condition the dismissal on SmartWater paying ADNAS’ legal fees in the litigation. In a decision issued on September 29, 2014, the Court approved the dismissal of the entire lawsuit, including SmartWater’s claims and ADNAS’ counterclaims, rejected ADNAS’ contention that SmartWater had brought or maintained the lawsuit in bad faith, and denied ADNAS’ claim for legal fees. ADNAS received nothing from SmartWater as a result.
A spokesperson for SmartWater said ‘It is on record in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that ADNAS have a history of operating losses which may continue and which may harm their ability to obtain financing and continue their operations. In light of this, we have decided it is commercially prudent to withdraw from the litigation rather than having the risk of throwing good money after bad. We will continue to rigorously enforce our intellectual property rights globally with the support of the Insurers of our legal costs.’
About SmartWater:
The SmartWater brand has been proven to be a most powerful crime deterrent when used in conjunction with the Company’s proprietary strategies and analytical capabilities. Wherever used, they change the crime landscape, improving both the quality of life for communities and the crime profile of whole cities and communities.
The cornerstone of their crime reduction strategies is cutting edge and unique forensic technology called SmartWater traceable liquid, which can be utilised in various ways, either to trace criminals or identify recovered stolen property.
The Company has operations in UK, France and the USA, as well as a network of agents and distributors globally.
® SmartWater, the SmartWater yellow and atom logo are trademarks of SmartWater Limited. SmartWater is a proprietary forensic asset marking System and Strategy protected by worldwide trademarks and patents.
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