Avitech, LLC, maker of the Intelliject® automated egg injection machine, announces that it has obtained a major court ruling.

Avitech, LLC, maker of the Intelliject® automated egg injection machine, announces that it has obtained a major court ruling in its long-running patent dispute with rival Embrex, Inc. of Durham, North Carolina.

In an opinion handed down by the Honorable William M. Nickerson of the United States District Court in Baltimore, Maryland on December 21, 2006, the Court construed the claims of Embrex’s patent-in-suit, U.S. Patent No. 5,136,797 (the ‘797 patent”), in ways favorable to AviTech’s position in the lawsuit. In particular, the Court construed three key terms of the patent claims in AviTech’s favor: “disengage”; “free to move in a translational direction independent of said tooling plate”; and reengages.” At the same time, the Court rejected Embrex’s proposed construction of each of those terms.

Claim construction rulings often determine the ultimate outcome of a patent infringement case because all that remains is for the defendant to show that the accused products do not correspond in the ways described in the construed patent claims.

“This ruling is a vindication of our conviction that the Intelliject® machine has innovative, state-of-the-art injection technology that does not infringe anyone’s patents,” said Rafael Correa, Senior Managing member of Avitech. “It should reinforce our message to customers and the poultry industry generally that our Intelliject® machine does not infringe Embrex’s patent.”

Avitech contends that the structure and operation of its Intelliject® machine differ significantly from the claims of Embrex’s patent as construed by the Court. The effect of the Court’s ruling is to clear the way for a trial to confirm these facts. Said Correa: “We are confident that we will soon clear the final hurdle in our legal battle with Embrex.