This story has been updated to include comment from 10x Genomics.
NEW YORK – 10x Genomics has sued Curio Bioscience, alleging that Curio's sequencing-based spatial gene expression assays infringe five patents held by 10x.
In a suit filed Friday in the US District Court for the District of Delaware, 10x alleged that Curio's Seeker products — based on the Slide-seq method developed in Fei Chen's lab at the Broad Institute — infringe US Patent Nos. 10,480,022; 10,662,468; 11,001,879; 11,549,138; and 11,761,030. All patents are titled "Spatially encoded biological assays." 10x is the exclusive licensee of the patents, owned by Prognosys Biosciences.
"We have become the latest target in a string of attacks by a company with a history of bringing litigation against smaller, innovating companies," Curio Bioscience said in a statement. "We are confident that we do not infringe the patents that 10x is asserting against us and believe that they will be found invalid. We will vigorously defend against 10x's allegations."
The suit further expands 10x's campaign for dominance of the spatial genomics intellectual property landscape. The Pleasanton, California-based single-cell and spatial technologies firm has sued just about every other competitor in this field and has won several major victories this year, including a $31 million jury verdict against NanoString Technologies for its GeoMx Digital Spatial Profiler in the US and a preliminary injunction preventing sales of CosMx Spatial Molecular Imager in Europe.
In its complaint, 10x said it sent Curio a letter in November 2022 "advising Curio of its patents in the field and seeking to ensure that its activities would not infringe on 10x's patent rights." In June, 10x sent a second letter; however, Curio did not respond to either letter, 10x said. "It's unfortunate we had to turn to litigation in order to safeguard our investments and properly recognize the foundational advances made by the earliest pioneers in the field," 10x Genomics Chief Legal Officer Eric Whitaker said in a statement.
10x has asked the court for a judgment that Curio has infringed its patents and for a permanent injunction. 10x also asked for a jury trial.