Industry veterans have been watching the animosity between SonoSite & GE grow over the last year with regards to the handheld ultrasound category.

Now GE claims that key products in SonoSite’s product portfolio violates GE’s patents.

This comes on the heels of the announcement that SonoSite & Zonare are involved in legal actions against each other.

It would seem a pecking order is being established.

It kinda reminds me of the early 1990’s when contrast agent companies were spending more money on litigation than product development.

This sort of news typically means that the “players” perceive that there is a lot of money at stake, about 1 Billion by 2011 according to industry expert Harvey Klein.