You may have heard about our patent infringement lawsuit against Serenity Technologies, Inc., Grail Innovations LLC, Star Ring, Inc., ValueVision Media, Inc. (ShopNBC) and Chuck Clemency.
Here's the updated news about the lawsuit.
Last fall Serenity claimed it had "uncovered some shocking information that has serious impact on the validity of Azotic's patent."
However, Azotic won a powerful victory in its fight with Serenity and Grail Innovations when the United States Patent Office rejected Serenity's attempt to invalidate Azotic's U.S. Patent No. 5,853,826.
When a patent passes reexamination, it is stronger because it has been subjected to an even more intense scrutiny - Azotic's '826 patent now has been approved twice by the Patent Office.
Serenity and Grail now not only must defend against Azotic's '826 patent, but they must continue to defend against Azotic's two new patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 6,997,014 and 7,137,275, which protect other aspects of our gemstone enhancement technology (in particular, they cover single body color enhancements you have seen from Azotic).
That's not all, though.
Serenity and Grail must continue to defend against claims for defamation, false statements, deceptive trade practices, tortious interference and unfair competition, all based on e-mails Serenity has sent to many in the gemstone industry.
As reported earlier, Azotic, ShopNBC, Star Ring and Chuck Clemency reached a settlement, and Azotic dismissed its claims against these three defendants.
Now that our '826 patent has been reexamined and strengthened, will continue to vigorously enforce our patent rights.
In addition, we will vigorously enforce our rights in our new '014 and '275 patents. We also have numerous patent applications pending in the Patent Office. That means we expect to have a continuing stream of new patents and new patent filings to protect our substantial investment in research and development.
While we prefer to resolve disputes without using the courts, we are in the gemstone enhancement business for the long haul, and we will defend our intellectual property against infringement and ask courts to award monetary damages against all infringers.