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.
East Midlands
Boots UK is based in Lenton in Nottingham, with 2,500 UK stores, where Stewart Adams developed Ibuprofen in the 1960s on Rutland Road in West Bridgford, and Vision Express are nearby, next to the A52. Boots was the biggest chemist chain in the world; now A.S. Watson Group is the world's biggest health retail company. Crookes Healthcare, formerly Boots and now Reckitt Benckiser, make Strepsils and Optrex on the enormous Boots site, and Boots Contract Manufacturing (BCM) make products for other firms; it makes Benylin for McNeil. On the ng2 business park, Specsavers have their corporate eyecare and contact lens division. Three out of the four main UK opticians are sited in Nottingham. The MRI scanner was developed at the University of Nottingham by Sir Peter Mansfield; MRI scanners were developed mainly by GEC Medical, once invented; MRI harnesses nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) of the hydrogen nucleus; Raymond Vahan Damadian of USA also claims the MRI invention.