CSHL specifically names Arrowhead Research subsidiaries Calando Pharmaceuticals and Insert Therapeutics, which were merged into one firm under the Calando name in 2008, and RXi Pharmaceuticals.
Starting last year, PacBio "conspired with defendant employees of Affymetrix" to hire employees from Affy, and then gathered confidential information on Affy in order to gain an "unfair economic advantage," Affy alleged in its complaint.
The suit accuses PacBio, which raised $200 million in its IPO last week, of engaging in "tortious misconduct by conspiring with current and former Affymetrix employees to solicit and hire current Affymetrix employees for the Pac Bio workforce."
The suit, which also names Pierce Biotechnology and Expedeon as defendants, alleges they infringe on a patent related to a cassette for use in electrophoretic gels.
The DOJ's brief reverses the US government's previous practices regarding gene patents and sides with the District Court's decision that isolated DNA, in and of itself, is not patentable.
In its suit, Gene Codes alleges New York's Office of Chief Medical Examiner infringed on its software developed to identify victims of the 9/11 attack at Ground Zero from DNA. The city is countersuing.
Helicos named the two firms as defendants, in addition to Pacific Biosciences, alleging they infringe on a total of five patents covering its single-molecule sequencing technology.
In court filings obtained by Gene Silencing News, Marina argued that the two companies' names are sufficiently different that they would not be confused by the savvy and educated players in the RNAi and miRNA spaces.
