Philips fined $466m for patent infringement
Dutch electronics company Philips has been ordered to pay more than $460 million after it was found guilty of infringing two patents.
The judgment at the US District Court for the District of Delaware brings to a close a five-year dispute and will see the company fork out $466.8 million to California-based healthcare company Masimo Corp.
Masimo sued in 2009, claiming Philips' healthcare division had used its patented technology to build machines that measure the amount of oxygen in a patient's blood and monitor pulse rates.
The case concerned technology for pulse oximetry, a non-invasive procedure to measure the level of oxygen saturation in a patient's blood.
The patents asserted by Masimo were US numbers 6,263,222 and 7,215,984.
Philips, which has its US headquarters in Massachusetts, had admitted infringing the patents but claimed that they should be declared invalid because they were "obvious" and described inadequately.
But the jury, which took less than a day to reach its conclusion, said Philips did not prove the claims.
In a statement to Reuters, Philips said it would appeal against the decision.
“We are very disappointed in the verdict and will appeal," a spokesman said.
"We remain convinced that Philips has not infringed any valid, enforceable patent claims of the two asserted Masimo patents."
Masimo did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
