Harvard, 10x accuse NanoString of infringing gene sequencing tech
Harvard College and 10x Genomics have sued Nanostring Technologies, alleging that the company’s CosMx imaging platform infringes two patents covering “gene-mapping” technology.
The complaint claims that Nanostring’s technology infringes two Harvard patents covering “Compositions and Methods for Analyte Detection”, which are solely licensed to 10x.
In 2020, 10x acquired ReadCoor, a genome sequencing company founded by Dr George Church, a professor at Harvard, acquiring its IP related to “in situ” analysis, which involves analysing a large number of molecules directly in tissue samples.
10x is currently developing Xenium, a new “in situ” analysis technology designed to create “spatial maps of gene expression in the original tissue at true cellular and subcellular resolutions”.
“This allows researchers and clinicians to build a comprehensive map—a kind of Google Earth—of where each analyte is, so that function can be tied to location,” the complaint claims.
Following 10x’s acquisition of ReadCoor, NanoString announced the launch of its CosMx Spatial Molecular Imager in March 2021, which purports to provide “spatially resolved mapping data and imaging for RNA and protein at a single-cell and subcellular resolution”
10x has asked that the US District Court for the District of Delaware for a ruling determining that NanoString infringes its two patents through its use and sale of the CosMx technology and has requested that the court issue preliminary injunctions baring NanoString from selling the allegedly infringing tech.
It also requests pre and post-judgment awards at the “maximum rate allowed by law”.
Harvard’s CRISPR win
This lawsuit comes shortly after Harvard University scored a landmark win in its ongoing patent dispute over breakthrough gene-editing technology CRISPR.
The US Patent and Trademark Office ruled that patents core to the technology belong to the university and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Broad Institute.
It shut down bids from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Vienna claiming that they were the first to invent the technology for use on animal cells.
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