Healthways licensing products

Disease manager joins with tech giant to offer access to patent catalog

Email | Print By Walker Duncan

Healthways has announced a joint patent licensing deal with Robert Bosch North America.

Through the deal, both companies will make available under a single license their catalogs of patents in the United States and other countries in the areas of remote health monitoring, automated diagnostics and disease management.

The licensing will be handled by Bosch subsidiary Health Hero Network. The companies' announcement said that the licenses contain a provision that “waives royalties for practice of the technologies for the period prior to Dec. 31, 2008 for companies who become licensees on or before June 1, 2009.”

The market has responded with skepticism, sending Healthways shares (Ticker: HWAY) down by more than 7 percent during morning trading. At about 11 a.m. CST, the stock was trading at $10.81.