BioCentury
ARTICLE | Company News

Affymetrix, Illumina microarrays news

January 14, 2008 8:00 AM UTC

Illumina agreed to pay Affymetrix $90 million to resolve the companies' patent litigation relating to methods and apparatuses for analyzing unknown polymer sequences using microarrays of known polymer sequences. Illumina will make the one-time payment without admitting liability, and Affymetrix will dismiss all lawsuits against Illumina. Affymetrix also granted Illumina and its customers a perpetual covenant not to sue for making, using or selling any of Illumina's current products, evolutions of those products or related services. This covenant covers all fields other than photolithography, in which Illumina does not operate. Affymetrix also agreed not to sue Illumina for four years for making, using or selling products or services that are based on future technology developments. Illumina will dismiss all counterclaims.

Last March, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware found that Illumina infringed five Affymetrix patents and awarded Affymetrix $16.7 million in damages. A decision in the second phase of the trial focusing on the validity of the patents was expected to begin next month. Affymetrix also had filed suits in the same court and in the U.K. and in Germany alleging that Illumina was infringing five additional U.S. patents and three European patents (see BioCentury, Oct. 29, 2007). As a result of the agreement, the $16.7 million awarded has been superseded. ...