NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Applera’s Applied Biosystems group has filed a patent-ownership lawsuit against Solexa, Solexa reported Friday.
ABI filed the breach-of-contract complaint in the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara, on Dec. 26.
Solexa said the lawsuit disputes the ownership of several patents relating to methods for sequencing DNA using “successive rounds of oligonucleotide probe ligation," also called sequencing-by-ligation.
These patents were assigned in 1995 to Lynx Therapeutics, a former unit of ABI that spun off in 1992 and later became part of Solexa. Stephen Macevicz, the inventor of the technology, is named as a co-defendant in the suit.
Solexa said in a statement that its 1G Analyzer next-generation sequencing technology, which is based on sequencing-by-synthesis, is not covered under any of the patents at issue in the suit.
The company added that Lynx’s MPSS technology, which it is phasing out, did not use sequencing-by-ligation and that it has “no plans” to use any technologies covered by the patents at issue.
Solexa said it believes the suit is "not material to its current or future business," and also noted that ABI has not claimed patent infringement.