NEW YORK – Promega this week filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Aobious in the US District Court for the District of Delaware.
The suit concerns Madison, Wisconsin-based Promega's intellectual property rights around the enzyme furimazine and its associated variants, which the company uses in its NanoLuc luciferase technology.
According to Promega's complaint, Gloucester, Massachusetts-based Aobious is infringing its IP by offering for sale furimazine and its variants hydrofurimazine and fluorofurimazine.
Furmazine is the substrate for Promega's NanoLuc luciferase. According to Promega, when the two substances are bound, they produce an "exceptionally bright luminescent signal," that can be used in luminescent reporter assays. The enzyme is used in Promega platforms including its NanoBiT, NanoBRET, and Lumit systems, which are used in protein expression, localization, degradation, and interaction studies.
"Furimazine substrates represent years of dedicated effort by Promega scientists to develop groundbreaking tools that help scientists drive progress in their fields," Poncho Meisenheimer, Promega VP of Research and Development, said in a statement. "We intend to protect our accomplishments and defend the high-quality products that utilize these unique molecules."