10x Genomics 'overjoyed' to win UPC preliminary injunction
Decision marks first announcement by the UPC of an injunction in open court | Ruling in Munich Local Division forecast to have far-reaching consequences for defendant | Comment from 10x vice president of IP and litigation, Randy Wu.
The Unified Patent Court (UPC) has today announced a decision to grant a preliminary injunction in the dispute between biotechnology research companies 10x Genomics and NanoString.
Both firms, which specialise in single-cell spatial transcriptomics (SST), have been head-to-head over patents covering the in-situ detection of analytes for more than two years.
In a number of multi-jurisdictional lawsuits, 10x accused Nanostring of infringing two of its European patents (2 794 928 B1 and 4 108 782 B1) via the latter’s CosMx products for ribonucleic acid (RNA).
In a parallel case,10x also alleged that Vizgen’s Merscope products infringe the ‘782 patent. Scheduled hearings for both cases were the first to be announced by the UPC last month, which were held at the court’s Munich Local Division on September 5, 6 and 19.
This latest injunction, granted at the same division under presiding Judge Matthias Zigann, is the first announcement by the UPC of an injunction in open court.
Earlier this year, in May, 10x Genomics secured an injunction in its patent litigation against NanoString Technologies at the Munich Regional Court.
The order required NanoString to stop selling and supplying the CosMx Spatial Molecular Imager (CosMx SMI) instruments as well as CosMx reagents for RNA detection in Germany. However, this UPC decision has further-reaching, EU-wide consequences for NanoString.
Randy Wu, 10x’s vice-president of intellectual property and litigation, told LSIPR: “We are overjoyed with this historic decision granting a preliminary injunction across the UPC.
“Since the formation of 10x, our commitment has been to drive innovation to push science forward. We have made massive investments in cutting edge R&D resulting in revolutionary products transforming the world’s understanding of health and disease.
“The entire purpose of patent systems around the world is to protect such innovations and encourage such investments. We will be steadfast in protecting the inventions that scientists have worked so hard to create, as innovation is what fuels and funds the development of future 10x technologies that benefit researchers—and ultimately patients.”
Asked about the implications of this latest development, Wu noted that “a patent holder must meet a very high standard to win a preliminary injunction”.
“We have done that here today, with a highly skilled panel of four judges issuing a detailed 110-plus page opinion finding in our favour.”
A final decision at the UPC is scheduled for October 10.
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