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Wolf Greenfield wins key claim construction ruling for The Jackson Laboratory

Wolf Greenfield’s litigation team prevailed on a novel question of claim construction for our client, The Jackson Laboratory, a leading biomedical research institution and repository for laboratory mice.

The suit, brought by The Central Institute for Experimental Animals (CIEA) in the Northern District of California, alleges infringement of a patent directed to the creation of transgenic immunodeficient mice by breeding particular progenitor mice.

Jackson asked the Court to decide the meaning of mouse strain names used in the patent claims. At the claim construction hearing, Jackson’s lead counsel Michael Rader called Dr. Janan Eppig, the chairperson of the International Committee on Standardized Genetic Nomenclature in Mice. Citing Dr. Eppig’s expert testimony, Judge Ronald Whyte construed the term “NOD/Shi mouse” consistently with international mouse nomenclature guidelines. Jackson views the decision as an important step toward establishing that it does not infringe the asserted CIEA patent.

This case appears to be the first instance in which a United States court has addressed issues of mouse nomenclature.

Wolf Greenfield’s litigation team for the case includes shareholder Michael Rader and associate Chelsea Loughran. As part of the proceedings, Loughran provided a technology tutorial for the Court that addressed relevant concepts in immunology, genetics, and mouse nomenclature.

Click below for a copy of Judge Whyte's ruling.