Sirtex awarded $2m in UWA case

A Federal Court justice has ruled in favour of Sirtex Medical in its damages claim against former University of WA scientist Bruce Gray, awarding the company approximately $1.9 million.

The long-running intellectual property case was back before Justice Michael Barker last week.

UWA had claimed that it had rightful ownership of Sirtex's cancer treatment technology which was developed by Dr Gray during his employment with the university.

The technology is currently being commercialised by Sirtex Medical, a company Dr Gray founded.

In April 2008, the Federal Court dismissed the claims by UWA against Sirtex and Dr Gray.

In a statement, Sirtex said it had incurred $5.5 million in legal costs and expenses in relation to proceedings involving UWA and Dr Gray

In November 2009, Sirtex settled its claim for costs against UWA and received $3.25 million.

Sirtex sought the balance of costs not recovered from UWA from Dr Gray.

Justice Barker found that there was an 86 per cent probability that Sirtex would have settled any claim by UWA and avoided the costs of the UWA proceedings had Dr Gray not breached his duties and mislead the company in failing to disclose correspondence between him and the vice-chancellor of UWA in 1999.

Justice Barker found that Sirtex is entitled to recover 86 per cent of the costs not received from UWA, and interest on that amount.

He requested the parties agree to precise amounts and return to court on Thursday where he will make his final orders.