NEW YORK – Zymo Research has filed an amended response and counterclaims in a lawsuit brought against it by Qiagen in August for allegedly infringing patents related to nucleic acid sample preparation.
In a late October filing with the US District Court for the Central District of California, Zymo denied all allegations in Qiagen's lawsuit, which claims that Zymo's MagicBead cfDNA Isolation Kit infringes on Qiagen's US Patent Nos. 10,184,145 and 11,021,736, which cover magnetic bead-based sample preparation of extracellular nucleic acids from cell-free or cell-depleted samples and are used in Qiagen's QiaSymphony PAXgene Blood ccfDNA Kit and QiaAmp MinElute ccfDNA Kit.
Furthermore, Zymo asserted in its response that the claims in the '145 and '736 patents are invalid under the obviousness doctrine, that the patents are unenforceable under the doctrine of patent misuse, and that the lawsuit is frivolous in nature.
In addition, Zymo claimed that Qiagen has misused its patents by seeking to broaden their scope and knowingly and willingly engaged in other activities to "obtain or maintain anticompetitive power improperly in the US." Moreover, Zymo claimed that Qiagen's anticompetitive conduct has injured its business both directly and through intentional interference with business relationships between Zymo and third parties.
In its demand for a jury trial, Zymo said it is seeking judgment of noninfringement of the Qiagen patents and/or declaration that the asserted patents are invalid and unenforceable. It is also seeking punitive damages and attorneys' fees.
"Qiagen's lawsuit was not brought in good faith and lacks merit," Marc Van Eden, VP of corporate development for Irvine, California-based Zymo, said in a statement. "The scientific community deserves access to cutting-edge tools that foster growth and discovery, and we are committed to defending our breakthrough [cell-free] DNA technology and our contributions to the scientific community."