The State of Israel, represented by Dr Shlomo Cohen & Co, Law Offices, has filed a NIS500 million ($132 million) lawsuit in the Tel Aviv District Court against Omrix Biopharmaceuticals Ltd and entrepreneur Robert Taub. Omrix, bought by Johnson & Johnson in 2008 for $438 million, has commercialised a number of related inventions concerning medical adhesives for treating haemophiliacs and other applications. In the lawsuit the state claims that the company stole its intellectual property.
The state based its case on testimony and documents submitted by state witness Professor Uriel Martinowitz, who they claim is the real inventor of Omrix's patent portfolio. According to the statement of claims, the defendants approached their IP counsel, licensed both in Israel and the US, for a legal opinion as to whether the inventions are service inventions. The counsel advised that Martinowitz's early inventions were not service inventions since they were invented after his discharge from the IDF and while on leave from the government hospital. Furthermore, as counsel to Omrix, the same attorney determined that Martinowitz was not the inventor of the claimed invention that had previously carried his name, nor was he an inventor of subsequent applications.
Since the Israel patent application was abandoned, the defendants may argue that the Israel court has no jurisdiction.
Due to the strategy adopted in the statement of case as filed, the charge of inventor fraud hangs over Omrix's patents and probably makes them unenforceable, whereas by doing nothing, the state could have collected substantial income from taxes, both income and corporate.
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| Michael Factor |
JMB Factor & Co
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