Illumina files for patent infringement over prenatal test
Genetic sequencing company Illumina has filed a patent infringement suit against Premaitha Health, a molecular diagnostics company, in the English High Court.
The suit, which was filed yesterday, September 7, accused Premaitha’s Iona test of infringing European patent 1,524,321 B2, called “Non-invasive detection of foetal genetic traits”.
The patent is licensed to Illumina from Sequenom, a genetic testing company.
Premaitha’s IONA test is a non-invasive prenatal test that estimates the risk of a foetus having Down’s syndrome and other genetic conditions.
The company has previously filed suits against Premaitha over the Iona test in the English High Court, claiming that the test infringed European Patent 0,994,963 B2; European Patent 1,981,995 B1; European Patent 2,183,693 B1; European Patent 2,385,143 B1; and European Patent 2,514,842 B1.
These suits are still pending.
In response to the suit, Stephen Little, CEO of Premaitha Health, said: "This latest claim uses old, publicly available information and we believe it is an attempt to abuse the legal process in the UK to obtain competitive advantage.
“That such large companies as Illumina and Sequenom should deem it necessary to compete in this way is disappointing but not unexpected.”
Little stated that he wishes to bring this behaviour to the attention of relevant competition authorities.
Earlier this year, LSIPR reported that the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said it would not review a writ filed by Illumina and its subsidiary Verinata Health in a patent dispute with Ariosa Diagnostics.
Illumina’s writ of mandamus claimed that the Federal Circuit should review the district court’s ruling which had refused “to apply properly the statutory of estoppel”.
The dispute arose in 2014 after Illumina and Verinata brought a case against Ariosa alleging that its pre-natal testing product infringes their US patent numbers 8,318,430 and 7,955,794.
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