BioMar has won another victory in an ongoing fight over a European patent obtained by STIM, which the latter company claimed BioMar is infringing upon.
The Oslo County Court has rejected an appeal of a lawsuit by STIM that claims BioMar’s smoltification feed Intro Tuning infringes on a patent obtained in July 2020. The court initially decided in December that BioMar’s feed does not infringe on STIM’s patent, a decision upheld by the denial of the appeal.
As a result, STIM’s request that a ban be placed on the sale of Intro tuning has been denied.
“Even though the outcome of the appeal was as expected, we are very happy that the Court of Appeal has now confirmed that the County Court decision was correct. This means that fish farmers can still choose feed from BioMar's product portfolio that promotes growth and health during smoltification and transfer to seawater,” BioMar Norway Managing Director Håvard Jørgensen said.
BioMar was fined NOK 23 million (USD 2.7 million, EUR 2.2 million) as a result of an initial patent lawsuit for a separate patent, which found that the company infringed on the patent rights to STIM’s feeds “SuperSmolt” and “SuperSmolt FeedOnly.” The two feeds are designed to accelerate the smoltification of salmon – the process all salmon go through when maturing from primarily fresh water to salt water. The court found that BioMar Norway’s feed called Intro Tuning infringed on the patent, and issued the fine.
The latest round of lawsuits stemmed from a second patent by STIM in the European Patent Office, which the courts ruled BioMar has not violated.
