IMRA Patent Suit Against Coherent Found Null in German Court

09 October, 2015—Ultrafast laser developer IMRA America (Ann Arbor, Mich., USA) announced on 02 October that the German Federal Patent Court in Duesseldorf found patent 695 00 997.4 invalid in Germany in response to a patent lawsuit filed against two German companies: Lumera Laser GmbH (now Coherent Kaiserslautern GmbH) and Coherent (Deutschland). The lawsuit, submitted 10 May 2013, alleged that Coherent sold the key picosecond laser component for micromachining non-biological materials via cold ablation, a “contributory infringement” protected by German Law.
 
The German patent is a counterpart of the 1994 US patent 5,656,186, originally developed at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and owned by the University. IMRA owns the exclusive license for use of the patent for non-biological processes. The patent lists Gerard Mourou and colleagues at the University of Michigan as inventors. Mourou is now at École Polytechnique Haut Collége in Palaiseau, France.

According to an IMRA press release, several U.S. patent proceedings have validated the U.S. ‘186 patent as fundamental to materials processing and precise micromachining using ultra-short pulsed lasers. The complaint names several Coherent lasers, including RAPID, SUPER RAPID-HE, HYPER RAPID, Talisker and Staccato.

“We are obviously very disappointed with the ruling,” wrote IMRA’s corporate strategy team in an email, “but understand that patent litigation is a long multiyear process.” The detailed ruling will be available for review in several weeks, when it will be available for public scrutiny via a formal file inspection procedure.
 
German patent law and U.S. patent law differ in several respects, but are similar in that the patent holder can recover for past infringement past the expiration of the patent. 
 
According to IMRA executives, the case could continue in Germany for another 10 years after the German patent expires.

[Editor's note: this story was updated on 26 October 2015 to remove a statement of opinion that OPN could not substantiate.]