Nomos Corporation has appealed the judgment of the district court in Nomos' patent infringement case against Zmed Inc. While the court found that the 'alpha' version of the Zmed SonArray System infringed the Nomos patent, the court also concluded the current version does not because it does not use a bracket to attach the ultrasound probe to the treatment table. The district court's failure to find infringement will be the central focus of the appeal and Nomos feels confident that such finding will be reversed.
"Statements made by Zmed relating to the recent court decision are inaccurate and misleading to the marketplace," said John W. Manzetti, President and Chief Executive Officer of Nomos Corporation. "The only issues decided by the jury in this case were issues related to damages, and Zmed's willful infringement, by the alpha units. Total damages to Nomos were more than $2 million. Notwithstanding the court's unequivocal language that the Zmed alpha units 'infringed' the Nomos patent, the jury did not award Nomos its damages. The court also dismissed Zmed's meritless counterclaim that Nomos violated a Zmed patent."
Nomos' launch of BAT in 1998 introduced the radiation therapy community to a revolutionary treatment device, allowing physicians to track tumor location and position patients within minutes to precisely align with a treatment plan, radically reducing target uncertainty from the industry standard 2 centimeters to 2 millimeters. With more than 220 systems already in use, BAT has become the 'standard of care' in the delivery of external beam radiotherapy to the prostate and other organs readily identifiable through ultrasound, including cancers of the breast, bladder, liver, pancreas and neck.
Patrick Kupelian, Director for Clinical Research, Department of Radiation Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center Orlando said, "I have been a BAT user since 1998 when I purchased one of the very first BATs for the The Cleveland Clinic Foundation. As a continuing user of BAT at MD Anderson in Orlando, I find the BAT technology to be unique, elegant, practical and effective in the field of non-invasive, image-guided patient positioning."
BAT is also used by many other clinical leaders that include Fox Chase Cancer Center (Philadelphia), Montreal General Hospital and the University of Virginia.
With more than 500 systems installed at over 250 locations around the world, Nomos Corporation is a recognized technology leader in IMRT, having pioneered the commercialization of IMRT technology by introducing the first commercial IMRT planning and delivery system, PEACOCK, in 1994. IMRT allows an escalated radiation dose to be delivered to the tumor while limiting exposure and damage to nearby healthy tissue. The Company estimates that its IMRT planning products have been used to treat a substantial majority of all IMRT patients treated with a commercial IMRT planning system worldwide. Along with BAT, Nomos also offers Peregrine, the first commercial radiation dose calculation and simulation software with an FDA-cleared accuracy claim of 2 per cent.