STIM has announced that it supports the appeal of a patent lawsuit the company against BioMar it won earlier this month.
The lawsuit, decided in STIM’s favor on 10 March, saw a NOK 16.5 million (USD 1.55 million, EUR 1.41 million) fine levied against BioMar, in addition to forcing the company to pay NOK 6.5 million (USD 614,00, EUR 556,600) in legal fees. The lawsuit relates to a patented feed process created by STIM that the company has dubbed “SuperSmolt” and “SuperSmolt FeedOnly,” which are designed to accelerate the smoltification of salmon.
BioMar announced it was planning to appeal the lawsuit soon after the decision, saying it didn’t commit any wrongdoings.
“BioMar has decided to appeal the judgement on having infringed one of the two existing STIM patents in Norway and violated the Marketing Act,” BioMar said in a press release. “The company does not agree to have copied a technology protected by valid patents or carried out other wrongdoings by the launch of the previous version of their smolt transfer product Intro Tuning.”
However, STIM CEO Jim-Roger Nordly said the initial court ruling was clear, and that BioMar knew what it was doing when it copied the company’s feed recipe.
“We find it obvious that Biomar know exactly what they are doing by selling this feed and that they are willing to hide behind the fish farmers on this issue,” Nordly said in a release. “I believe Oslo District Court also shared this view.”
BioMar, in its appeal, asserted that the process should not be protected by a patent.
“BioMar Norway truly believes that a generally-known method to improve smoltification in aquaculture cannot be protected by a patent. As an important contributor to innovation in the industry and a company with a strong record of developing patented technology, we fully respect intellectual property rights,” BioMar Norway Managing Director Håvard Jørgensen said. “We however believe that in this case, we have not infringed any valid patent as the fundamental knowledge existed both internally in BioMar and within the industry prior to the filing of the STIM patent in question.”
STIM, however, supports the appeal in order to have the court “sharpen the reactions against the feed producer,” and Nordly said he has “little regard” for BioMar’s arguments.
“It is almost comical. BioMar has made leeching on the innovations of others into part of their business concept,” Nordly said. “The thorough and well worked-out ruling makes clear that this is exactly what BioMar has done. BioMar should show some humility towards the customers they have been judged to have misled in this case.”
