IMDEX to receive $10M in out-of-court settlement with Boart Longyear over downhole tool patent

IMDEX Limited (ASX:IMD) shares jumped 3.5% on Friday trades as the company confirmed it’s settled a long-running lawsuit with Boart Longyear over a patent lawsuit involving downhole drilling tools.

All in all, Boart Longyear will now pay IMDEX $10M to settle the claim out of court with all legal action in multiple countries to be withdrawn. The settlement is binding and wraps up a patent lawsuit that started back in 2022.

“We are pleased to bring this long running dispute to an end and look forward to a starting a new chapter in our relationship with Boart Longyear, where we get to provide our market leading technologies with one of the world’s pre-eminent drilling companies,” IMDEX CEO Paul House said.

All in all, Imdex has been found to have had the rights to IP surrounding a downhole drilling tool used for core orientation sold by Boart Longyear and Globaltech those latter companies called ‘TruCore.’

Back in November of 2022, the Federal Court of Australia found that Boart Longyear and Globaltech had infringed on Imdex’s IP by offering ‘TruCore’ products in Australia.

Imdex also had a win in the US in that same month which forced Boart Longyear to seek Imdex’s consent to sell core orientation tools using its IP.

To go over the technicalities of the case: the lawsuit originally involved a third party called Globaltech, that company went under in April this year; IMDEX then entered into a Deed of Company Administration (DOCA) with Globaltech’s administrators. Imdex had been ordered to pay an Imdex subsidiary $7.9M only the month prior.

Imdex’s DOCA was then challenged by “a number of Boart Longyear companies” – the context here is that Globaltech was 58% owned by Boart Longyear to begin with. Those challenges are now being dismissed.

IMD last traded at $2.10.