Genetic analysis tool-maker Illumina Inc. is lobbing another intellectual property claim at rival Affymetrix Inc., with whom it has been mired in patent-infringement litigation for a year. Illumina said this week that it has asked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to investigate the proper ownership of a patent Affymetrix picked up through its acquisition of ParAllele Bioscience Inc., which closed Monday.
The patent in question is #6,858,412, "Direct multiplex characterization of genomic DNA," which covers molecular inversion probe technology. The patent application was filed in 2001 and granted by the PTO in February 2005 to Stanford University, which exclusively licensed it to ParAllele.
But Illumina, based in San Diego, says the relevant technology was invented earlier at the company, although it's not currently being used there. Illumina CEO Jay Flatley cited a patent application Illumina filed in 2002, titled "Detection of nucleic acid reactions on bead arrays," which Illumina says shows an invention priority date that predates ParAllele's patent.
A spokesman for Affymetrix, in Santa Clara, California, declined to comment on Illumina's PTO filing. Illumina has requested an "interference" proceeding, which asks the PTO to determine which of multiple parties claiming the same invention created it first, giving it priority on patent ownership.
The two companies began trading IP barbs last year, when Affymetrix filed a lawsuit alleging infringement by Illumina on six of its patents. Illumina denied the claims and filed its own suit alleging unfair competition by Affymetrix. Trial is set to begin in October 2006 in U.S. District Court in Delaware.