Scientist accuses Illumina of long-running trade secrets plot
Dispute stems from the theft of a data set of ZipCode sequences used in genetic testing | Plaintiff holds that pharma companies conspired against him | Cornell University claimed that Thermo Fisher misled it into settling a lawsuit in 2017.
A former Cornell University researcher has taken Illumina and a number of attorneys who represented Cornell to court over an alleged conspiracy that deprived the researcher of his IP rights.
In a suit filed Saturday, April 9, at the US District Court for the District of New Jersey, Monib Zirvi alleged that attorneys at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and Latham & Watkins had conspired with Illumina and Thermo Fisher Scientific to steal a data set of ZipCode sequences.
The sequences enable mass production and manufacture of DNA computer chips known as DNA microarray and, according to the suit, are “necessary to identify cancer mutations and other DNA applications, analogous to developing the operating system software for personal computers”.
Back in 2010, Cornell and its exclusive licence holder Thermo Fisher’s Life Technologies sued Illumina for allegedly infringing a series of genetic testing patents. The dispute was settled in 2017. Later, Cornell claimed Thermo Fisher had misled it into settling the clash.
Zirvi has claimed that, at the time of the dispute between Cornell and Illumina, Illumina and ThermoFisher were secretly working together to develop the ‘Ampliseq for Illumina’ product line.
However, Cornell and Thermo Fisher’s attorneys (who had advised Zirvi during the dispute) allegedly withheld that the two companies were collaborating “during the entire time they were representing plaintiff, a knowingly deliberate conflict of interest”.
According to the suit, the defendants had worked together to “commit an unlawful act that deprived the plaintiff of his IP rights and did so while pretending to be engaged in a legitimate fight within the confines of a court case over the IP”.
After listing more than 50 patents which “absolutely depend on ZipCodes to function”, Zirvi asked the court to retroactively name him as an inventor on dozens of Illumina’s patents and to be awarded an unspecified amount of money damages.
The suit further alleged that the attorneys were negligent in their representation of Zirvi in the Cornell case and made material misrepresentations, and misrepresentations by omission, to the researcher.
Separately, Zirvi and other members of a research team sued Illumina and Thermo Fisher in 2018, claiming that the two companies had engaged in a “complex, multi-decade concerted effort” to conceal the theft of trade secrets in the 1990s. The suit was thrown out in 2020.
