Fonar Corp. v. General Electric Co.
"Fonar" was a dispute between medical device manufacturer Fonar Corporation and General Electric over Fonar's patent on MRI technology. Fonar's founder, Raymond Damadian, was issued U.S. Patent 3,789,832 (priority date 1972-03-17) for an "apparatus and method for detecting cancer in tissue" using the magnetic resonance of atoms. Damadian's patent was the first patent on an MRI machine issued in the United States. Also at issue was a later patent, U.S. Patent 4,871,966 issued in 1989, covering a method for obtaining MRI images of multiple planes at different orientations in a single scan. GE is a major manufacturer of MRI scanners, and Fonar sued GE for infringing these patents by producing its scanners as well as inducing others to infringe.
Cheon Jinwoo
Through his fundamental studies, he integrated the fields of inorganic nanomaterials and medical science. This nexus led to the advent of a new field known as "nanomedicine". In 2005, for the first time, he demonstrated the principle of size-dependent MRI contrast effects using nanoparticles. This enabled the development of a new class of nano-MRI contrast agent, MEIO (magnetism-engineered iron oxide) which displayed 10 times stronger MRI signals compared to those of conventional contrast agents. This study opened possibilities to the advancement of the early stage diagnosis of cancer and stands as a research milestone in the field. In addition, Cheon developed multimodal probes to enhance the imaging accuracy by designing opto-magnetic probe, PET-MRI probes, dual-mode T1-T2 MRI probes. Successful discrimination of true signal of biological targets could be attained by these developments, opening a new avenue to have accurate diagnosis of disease.