
Siemens survives in Saint-Gobain suit
Siemens AG (ETR:SIE) survived a bid to toss a $44.9 million patent infringement verdict by Saint-Gobain SA (EPA:SGO), according to Bloomberg.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said that award may need to be boosted to account for other Saint-Gobain products that infringed the patent, ordering a lower court to reconsider the damages.
The European rivals are fighting over crystals used to convert gamma rays to light for three-dimensional imaging technology. Saint-Gobain supplies the crystals for 79 scanner models made by Philips Medical Systems (NYSE:PHG), which wasn’t named in the case. The appeals court ruled that the lower court’s decision should have covered 18 of those scanners, not just the 61 Philips models dealt with in the original decision.
Shareholder sues to block Danaher’s $6.8 billion Beckman Coulter buy
A Beckman Coulter Inc. (NYSE:BEC) shareholder is suing to block a $6.8 billion acquisition of the diagnostics giant by Danaher Corp. (NYSE:DHR), arguing that the company is worth more than the $83.50-per-share offer.
Yuri Levin, in a complaint filed in Delaware Chancery Court, called the bid “unfair and grossly inadequate” and accused BEC’s board and management of acting in their own self-interest to land a cumulative $42 million from stock sales, according to Bloomberg.
Early last month Danaher ended weeks of jockeying for Brea, Calif.-based Beckman Coulter, offering a 29.5 percent premium over that price and tops the pre-merger-announcement price by 46.3 percent. The Washington-based industrial conglomerate plans to fold BEC into its $2.3-billion life sciences & diagnostics segment, joining Danaher’s stable of healthcare brands including Leica, AB Sciex and Radiometer and Molecular Devices businesses (Danaher also has a $1.8-billion dental segment). The deal is slated to close during the first half of this year.
BEC shares were down slightly in early morning trading, slipping a penny to $82.93.
Mass. General Hospital pays $1 million for medical records leak
An employee’s absent-mindedness caused a big headache for Mass. General Hospital, which agreed to pay $1 million to settle a federal beef over lost medical records.
The Boston-based medical center and its physicians organization will pony up the cash and develop new policies to prevent similar disclosures. In March 2009, a Mass. General employee left records from 192 patients on a subway train. The records, for patients at the hospital’s Infectious Disease Associates practice — including patients with HIV/AIDS — in some cases included sensitive personal information including Social Security numbers and medical diagnoses, according to news reports.