Wyatt Technology Corporation, a leader in instruments for absolute macromolecular characterization, announces that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the summary judgment of the Federal district court and reinstated Wyatt’s conversion (theft) claims against Viscotek, a Malvern Company, for DynaPro-related assets and for Viscotek’s violations under the Lanham Act.
The Ninth Circuit also reversed damages previously awarded to Viscotek.
Wyatt’s lawsuit seeks damages in excess of $5 Million arising from Viscotek’s theft of Protein Solutions assets which included domain names, test equipment, customer databases, and other items-all of which were purchased by Wyatt in a court-administered auction in November 2004.
Wyatt Technology is a Santa Barbara, California-based company that develops and commercializes instrumentation used for the absolute characterization of macromolecules and nanoparticles in solution. In late 2004 Wyatt successfully outbid Malvern at the court-directed liquidation to purchase the assets of Proterion Corporation (Protein Solutions), which had ceased operations. The assets included the DynaPro instrument product line among other assets, which are used worldwide to characterize the solution behavior of biomolecules.
Dr. Philip Wyatt, the CEO of Wyatt Technology, stated: “We are very pleased that we will have the opportunity at last to recover the property taken by Viscotek and obtain the appropriate financial compensation for damages.”
Geofrey Wyatt, the Company President, added that Viscotek’s parent, Malvern Instruments USA, was being brought to trial by Wyatt within the next two months on similar illegal conduct including theft of trade secrets. “We are seeking damages from Malvern in excess of $25 million.”
Date: September 1, 2009
Source: Wyatt Technology
Filed Under: Drug Discovery
