Jury finds against Millennium -- AGAIN

How many times in a row is this????....well, once again a jury finds AGAINST Millennium and for Ameritox. It's getting pretty obvious who is breaking the law. Someone can't even come up with their own reports?? gimme a break.

Let the jury speak:

Millennium Must Pay Ameritox $8.6M In Patent Row, Jury Says
By Matthew Bultman

Law360, New York (April 22, 2015, 4:17 PM ET) -- After refusing to invalidate an Ameritox Ltd. patent for urine test sample reports, a Wisconsin federal jury on Tuesday awarded Ameritox and Marshfield Clinic Inc. $8.65 million for rival Millennium Laboratories Inc.’s alleged infringement.

The ruling capped a seven-day trial in Madison, Wisconsin, marking the latest chapter in a litigious war that has included fights over alleged kickbacks, false claims and trademark infringement.

“Ameritox is very pleased with the outcome, especially in light of the fact this is the second win before a federal jury within the last year against Millennium,” said Michael R. Osterhoff, one of the attorneys representing Ameritox in the case.

In June 2014, Ameritox won a $15 million verdict when a Florida federal jury found Millennium giving physicians drug-test cups violated anti-kickback and other laws. In September, a judge trimmed $3.5 million off the jury’s $12 million punitive damages award.

The instant trial moved to the damages phase late last week after the jury unanimously found that U.S. Patent Number 7,585,680 was valid as it was neither anticipated nor obvious on 10 disputed claims.

In a statement Wednesday, Millennium said it doesn’t use the underlying patent and the lawsuit has no impact on its services. Nonetheless, it said it plans to appeal the validity of the patent and various other decisions in the case.

“While we are disappointed in the outcome, as the Court recognized, an appellate court will ultimately decide whether the combination of ‘basic and well-known’ scientific steps can be patented,” the company said.

The suit, filed in 2011, accused Millennium of infringing on the '680 patent and another patent, U.S. Patent Number 7,785,895, both related to methods for detecting substances in urine samples. The methods are used to monitor patients' levels of pain and addiction medication to determine abuse or combination with dangerous drugs.

The lengthy litigation reached a turning point in the February ruling on summary judgment, which Judge Conley said was a matter of first impression looking at the "broad tension in patent law between what is legitimate invention ... and what is merely description of the natural world."

The judge found one patent was invalid for lack of enablement, while the ‘680 patent was allowed to move forward.

Prior to it reaching the jury stage, the court also found Millennium had infringed the patent. But whether that infringement was willful - which would allow damages to be trebled - remains a sticky subject.

The Federal Circuit has set forth a two-pronged standard for establishing willful infringement, which includes an objective prong determined by a judge and a subjective prong determined by a jury.

In a ruling Friday, following presentation of evidence to the jury, Judge Conley found Millennium had raised a “substantial question” of obviousness that warranted dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claim on the objective prong.

Nonetheless, he left it up to the jury to decide on the second aspect, who found Tuesday found Millennium had willfully infringed because it knew, or should have known, the patent was valid.

Judge Conley explained he had the jury decide on the subjective prong “solely to avoid the necessity of an additional trial should the Federal Circuit disagree with this court’s conclusion as to the objective prong, now that the jury has heard substantially, if not all, of the evidence necessary to reach this fact question.”

Ameritox and Millennium both offer drug-testing services to doctors who prescribe pain medications to their patients and want to monitor whether their patients may be abusing the painkillers or combining them with illicit or dangerous drugs.

The two rivals have been embroiled in litigation for nearly five years, variously accusing each other of charging Medicare for unnecessary tests, trademark infringement of diagnostic reports and making false statements in advertisements, according to court documents.