GTG settles licensing dispute in US

Genetic Technologies (ASX:GTG) has made it a hat-trick in its recent patent litigation activities, with a settlement to a long-running licensing dispute.

GTG announced that it has completely resolved its dispute with Laboratory Corporation of America (LabCorp) related to a licence for its non-coding DNA patents it had originally allocated in 2004.

This licence was originally issued to Genzyme Corporation, which had agreed to pay $18 million in compensation over 11 years - partly in cash and partly in kind.

But GTG later initiated arbitration against its licensee, alleging that Genzyme did not meet its repayment obligations. Genzyme then transferred the licence to LabCorp.

GTG and LabCorp recently entered settlement negotiations, supervised by an independent mediator, and have reached a confidential commercial agreement to settle the matter.

The agreement comes one week after GTG secured settlements in two separate patent infringement lawsuits against gene screening organisations.

The company has been using the legal system to coerce companies into licensing the use of the patented genetic markers that form the basis of its BREVAGen breast cancer risk assessment screening process.

Genetic Technologies shares were trading 2.5% higher at $0.082 as of around 1.30 pm on Monday.