Ex-Baxter unit loses patent suit

A former unit of Baxter International Inc., the largest maker of blood-disease treatments, was ordered to pay $15.7 million to Haemonetics Corp. for violating a patent on technology for collecting blood.

A federal jury in Boston began deliberations Jan. 29 and decided Jan. 30 in favor of Haemonetics, a global supplier of equipment to collect blood and plasma. The company claimed the ALYX system, owned by former Baxter unit Fenwal Inc., infringes its technology for a portable device.

"We've been waiting a long time for this," Martin O'Donnell, an attorney for Haemonetics, said after the verdict was announced. Haemonetics attorneys told the judge they may seek a preliminary injunction to stop future sales of the blood- collection kits.

Fenwal, closely held since 2007, still gets manufacturing, distribution and support services from Baxter. Baxter sold the division that markets ALYX in March 2007 to Texas Pacific Group and Maverick Capital Ltd. The investors named the new company Fenwal.

Under the terms of the unit's sale, Fenwal assumed liability for the Haemonetics case, said Deborah Spak, a Baxter spokeswoman.

Lawyers for Deerfield-based Baxter claim its researchers invented the ALYX system in 1998, before the Haemonetics technology.

Baxter attorneys declined to comment after the verdict.

Haemonetics asked for $35 million in the suit, filed in December 2005. The company, based in Braintree, Massachusetts, licensed the patent from inventor Jean-Denis Rochat, who applied for it in 1998, with the assistance of Boston's Bromberg Sunstein.

Haemonetics bought the invention in 2000 for $4 million.

In dispute is patent 6,705,983, which was issued in March, 2004.

In 1995, Haemonetics became the first company to sell an automated system for collecting red blood cells from volunteers. The company controlled the market until 2003, when Baxter introduced ALYX and sold more than 1 million devices.

The case is Haemonetics Corp. v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 05cv12572, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts (Boston).