L'Oreal has settled a patent case brought in the US by the University of Massachusetts and Carmel Laboratories relating to an anti-ageing skin cream.
The three organisations told a Delaware federal court that they had resolved their dispute and would seek to dismiss the case by 22 March, reported Reuters.
Carmel is a subsidiary of Teresian Carmelites, a Worcester, Massachusetts-based religious community and monastery led by former Catholic monk Dennis Wyrzykowski.
Carmel and University of Massachusetts, whose patents the group licenses to make its Easeamine anti-aging face cream, sued L'Oreal in 2017.
The lawsuit said that L'Oreal's RevitaLift moisturizer and unnamed products for Maybelline, Lancome, and other L'Oreal brands infringed patents related to skin creams with the chemical adenosine.
According to the complaint, a L'Oreal representative discussed the patented technology with its inventor - a University of Massachusetts medical-school professor and Teresian Carmelite community member, James Dobson - in 2003.
L'Oreal denied the allegations and convinced the court to invalidate the patents in 2021.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit revived the patents and the case in 2022.
The case is University of Massachusetts v. L'Oreal USA Inc, U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, No. 1:17-cv-00868.
