Hologic wins ruling against ex-employee, Chinese firm

Women's imaging firm Hologic has been granted a preliminary injunction from a Commonwealth of Massachusetts court in its civil litigation against a former employee and Chinese x-ray equipment provider Direct Digital Imaging Technology.

Hologic's amended complaint alleged that Lawrence Ibbetson and Direct Digital Imaging Technology misappropriated trade secrets incorporated in selenium coating technology for detectors used in Hologic's mammography systems. In his ruling on November 27, Superior Court Associate Justice Brian Davis said the court found that Hologic demonstrated a likelihood of success and a substantial risk of irreparable harm if the requested relief was not granted.

As a result, the judge preliminarily enjoined the defendants from making use of or disclosing trade secrets regarding Hologic's proprietary coating process, including layer/specifications data. In addition, the judge preliminarily enjoined the defendants from using a coating machine supplied by Kurt J. Lesker Co. to develop a selenium coating technology that is based upon or tainted in any way by the defendants' prior exposure and/or use of any of Hologic's layer/specifications data.

Furthermore, the preliminary injunction restricted the defendants from researching and developing an alternative selenium coating unless the coating is not tainted in any way by the defendants' exposure to Hologic's data and if this effort is conducted only by a "Clean Team" under the watch of an independent monitor that is mutually agreed upon by both parties.

Direct Digital Imaging Technology will, however, be able to license another selenium coating technology provided by an independent third party that is not affiliated with the defendants. If this independently licensed selenium coating design is approved by the independent monitor, the Lesker machine could then be used to manufacture the selenium coating, according to the court order.