Health Discovery receives final patent infringement payment from Vermillion

Feb 4 2010

Health Discovery Corporation (OTCBB: HDVY) announced today that the Company has received the final payment that was due under the agreement that settled the Company’s patent infringement lawsuit against Vermillion (Pink Sheets: VRML), formerly known as Ciphergen Biosystems, Inc. In 2006, Health Discovery Corporation sued Ciphergen Biosystems in Federal District Court for infringement of several of its patents covering the use of support vector machines (SVMs) for the discovery of biomarkers. As alleged in the complaint, Ciphergen’s researchers had used SVMs to identify the most promising biomarkers for diagnosis of ovarian cancer, the results of which had been reported in a number of medical publications. The settlement agreement, through which Ciphergen was granted a limited license to continue its use of the Company’s SVM technology only in conjunction with its protein based SELDI mass spectrometry technology, was inked in July 2007. No rights were granted under the license to use HDC's SVM technology for gene-based molecular diagnostic discovery, digital pathology interpretations, digital radiology interpretation nor any other discovery use outside of the very narrow field of SELDI-based protein discovery. Vermillion went on to further develop these biomarkers into the OVA1^™ test, which was approved by the FDA in September 2009 and exclusively licensed to Quest Diagnostics. Based on these favorable developments, Vermillion recently emerged from bankruptcy and has enjoyed phenomenal growth in its share prices.

“The results achieved by Vermillion provide further testimony to the value of Health Discovery Corporation’s proprietary SVM technology, both from a technical and a financial perspective”

“The results achieved by Vermillion provide further testimony to the value of Health Discovery Corporation’s proprietary SVM technology, both from a technical and a financial perspective,” said Dr. Stephen Barnhill, Chairman and CEO of Health Discovery Corporation. “In addition to our own biomarker discovery programs, we are continuing to pursue revenue-producing licensing opportunities, retroactively, as in the case of Vermillion, and going forward, to develop new applications of the technology within our intellectual property portfolio.” The applicability of SVM technology to countless uses is allowing Health Discovery Corporation to direct its licensing efforts both within and outside of the healthcare arena, including high-tech applications such as Internet search engines, electronic health records, fraud detection, security and surveillance, and fault detection and prediction in vehicles and aircraft.

SOURCE Health Discovery Corporation