Qiagen seeks judgment in COVID-19 wastewater testing suit

Qiagen has asked a Delaware court to issue a declaratory judgment that its method for testing for COVID-19 in wastewater does not infringe Bio-Rad’s patents.

In a short complaint filed Wednesday, April 6, the German diagnostics company argued that its QIAcuity Digital Polymerase Chain Reaction system did not infringe six Bio-Rad patents.

The system uses a biochemical method of “amplifying” certain DNA strands and tagging them with fluorescent markers. Qiagen claims that the system is used in 48 out of 50 US states to test municipal wastewater for signs of COVID-19.

In May 2021, Bio-Rad sent a letter to Qiagen holding that the QIAcuity system incorporated patented technology “without authorisation”.

Specifically, Bio-Rad claimed that QIAcuity “at least” infringed US patents RE41780, 10,782,226, and 10,921,237. It then sent a follow-up letter in February 2022 accusing the system of infringing a further three newly-issued patents: 11,073,468, 11,231,355, and 11,237,096.

Qiagen denied that it infringed the claims of the six asserted patents and told the court that it attempted to settle with Bio-Rad out of court.

However, Qiagen said: “It has become clear that the parties cannot resolve this issue without court assistance, and Qiagen believes further discussions would be futile in their current form.

“Due to the imminent threat of a lawsuit being brought against it, Qiagen files suit in Delaware, the state in which Bio-Rad is incorporated.”

Qiagen asked the court for a declaratory judgment that it does not infringe the six patents and demanded a jury trial as well as a triple-damages reward.

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