NEW YORK, Oct. 15 – A US District Court has dismissed two claims filed by Affymetrix which asserted that Incyte had violated its “two-color” patent, Incyte said on Monday.
In a statement, Incyte said that the US District Court for the Northern District of California issued a summary judgment ruling dismissing claims that Incyte had violated ab patent designed to protect Affymetrix’s use of two-color fluorescent labels in microarray experiments.
"The Court's ruling is a victory, not only for Incyte, but for the entire medical research community," Lee Bendekgey, Incyte's general counsel, said in a statement. "Affymetrix has continually asserted that it owns the field of DNA arrays regardless of the method of manufacture and regardless of the uses to which those arrays are put. These rulings significantly scale back the scope of the Affymetrix' patent estate.”
Affymetrix was not immediately available for comment.
Both Affymetrix of Santa Clara, Calif., and Incyte of Palo Alto, Calif., manufacter cDNA arrays, although Affy's arrays use photolithography to activate its arrays, whereas Incyte uses spotted arrays where the cDNA is printed on the chip.
The decision follows a host of similar rulings in which the court determined that certain aspects of Incyte's cDNA microarrays and polynucleotide arrays do not infringe other Affymetrix patent claims.
Incyte has filed an additional motion for summary judgment for Affymetrix’s remaining claims that Incyte’s polynucleotide arrays infringe on Affy’s patents. That hearing will take place on Oct. 16.