Court Determines Intellectual Property in the Patent Application belongs to ContextVision
Ownership Clarified: ContextVision Receives Positive Ruling in Patent Litigation
STOCKHOLM, Sweden – July 12, 2013 – The Stockholm District Court has ruled that ContextVision is the owner of a patent application filed by Sapheneia in September 2006. The patent application represents the underlying technology across multiple medical imaging modalities. ContextVision proved that the technology within the patent is a result of work the two filing inventors conducted during their time at ContextVision.
According to Swedish Law, any invention or patent application filed within six months of employment belongs to the previous employer. In this case, Sapheneia registered the patent application five months after the inventors left ContextVision, making ContextVision the rightful owner of the application.
Sapheneia’s platform, “Clarity Server Solution,” relates to the technology included within the September 2006 patent application. Due to the court’s ruling, ContextVision now owns the patent application.
“Although we had anticipated the outcome, we very much welcome this fair decision and are pleased that the dispute with Sapheneia is now taking this direction. We will now analyze how to proceed in this case” says Anita Tollstadius, CEO, ContextVision.
Background
In 2006, five employees left ContextVision and founded Sapheneia Commercial Products AB (SCP) with two American citizens who had previously worked with ContextVision as consultants. Sapheneia built its product base off of technology that directly competes with that of ContextVision.
In September 2006, SCP filed a patent application only five months after the inventors left ContextVision.
In 2008 Context Vision began legal proceedings against Sapheneia at the Stockholm District Court requesting a declaratory judgment stating that ContextVision is the owner of the patent application.
The main hearing was held in Stockholm, May 27-30. On July 12 the Stockholm District Court ruled in favor of ContextVision and declared that ContextVision owns the patent application. Sapheneia was ordered to pay ContextVision’s legal costs during this process, amounting to TSEK 2,940.
About ContextVision
ContextVision is a leading provider of image enhancement software to the global medical imaging industry since 1983, with the versatile GOP® technology at its core. We play a key role in helping manufacturers by offering clinicians unparalleled diagnostic image quality, ultimately providing patients with better care. ContextVision continues to offer the latest software and expertise within ultrasound, x-ray, magnetic resonance imaging, mammography, interventional radiology and computed tomography. Our groundbreaking technology and lengthy expertise have granted us a pioneer position within 2D/3D/4D image enhancement across multiple modalities. For more information, please visit www.contextvision.com.