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.
Jonathan S. Lewin
Lewin has published more than 250 articles, commentaries, and chapters and has served on editorial boards or as an editor for the Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, the "American Journal of Neuroradiology", the "Journal of the American College of Radiology", "Magnetic Resonance Imaging Clinics of North America, Topics in Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and Current Protocols in Magnetic Resonance Imaging". In addition, he holds more than twenty-five patents for inventions related to MRI technology and has been principal or co-principal investigator on more than $10 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health and other federal and state funding agencies.