LadaTech files patent infringement lawsuit against Illumina

LadaTech announced today that it has served its complaint upon Illumina, Inc. in its lawsuit for patent infringement in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. LadaTech is jointly owned by GlaxoSmithKline and IP Finance Holdings.

LadaTech's lawsuit is for the infringement of United States Patent No. 6,107,023, which issued on August 22, 2000 on an application filed in June 1988. The ‘023 patent covers a fundamental invention that permits the amplification of mixtures of DNA fragments without requiring any knowledge of the structure of the individual fragments. The patented DNA amplification method is essential to modern gene sequencing techniques such as that performed by Illumina’s Solexa Genome Analyzer System.

The ‘023 patent has been re-examined by the United States Patent and Trademark Office pursuant to the request of Illumina for such re-examination. Following the re-examination, the Patent Office issued a Re-examination Certificate in August of this year reaffirming the validity of the patent claims.

The invention covered by the ‘023 patent resulted from the work of two scientists, Greg Reyes and Jungsuh Kim, working at Genelabs Technologies, Inc. in Redwood City, California. Genelabs, which was acquired by GlaxoSmithKline in 2008, was a pioneer in the development of and applications for PCR DNA amplification methods.

According to Nicholas Didier, President and CEO of LadaTech, "We have sought to grant a license to Illumina on reasonable terms, but Illumina has refused to enter into a license agreement and to pay what it owes for its infringing use of the ‘023 patent invention. Based on this refusal, LadaTech has concluded that litigation is its only remaining option to protect its intellectual property. While we would have preferred to grant a license on reasonable terms, we are committed to taking all appropriate steps to protect our rights."

LadaTech is being represented in the Delaware lawsuit by Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnel LLP.

Source: LadaTech