NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Cornell University and Life Technologies have filed a lawsuit against Illumina, alleging that a variety of the firm's research instruments and other products infringe eight patents held by Cornell and exclusively licensed to Life Technologies.
The suit, which was filed this week in the US District Court for the District of Delaware, claims that Illumina's sale of products and services involving its GoldenGate Genotyping Assay, DASL Assay, Sentrix Array Matrix, BeadXpress products, iScan, and HiScanSQ, among others, infringe at least one of the eight patents. Seven of the eight patents cover claims related to polymerase chain reaction methods, while one patent contains claims on instruments.
"Illumina's infringing activities include, without limitation, the making, using, selling and offering to sell instruments, reagents, kits and services to perform the Illumina GoldenGate Genotyping Assay and the Illumina DASL Assay," as well as services using those instruments, according to the complaint filed in the US District Court for the District of Delaware.
The eight patents at the center of the case are US Nos. 6,797,470; 7,083,917; 7,166,434; 7,312,039; 7,320,865; 7,332,285; 7,364,858; and 7,429,453. The patents all relate to detecting nucleic acid sequences using coupled ligase detection and PCR.
Cornell and Life Technologies have asked the court to judge that that Illumina has infringed the patents in the suit, that Illumina be restrained and enjoined from infringing the patents, and for unspecified damages and costs.