Home Business Bio Tech European Court Strikes Down Ha...

European Court Strikes Down Harvard Biotech Patent in Three Nations

Bio Tech

Nanostring, Jurisdiction, Technology, Litigation

Business Honor
23 October, 2024

European court invalidates Harvard's patent in NanoString dispute, marking a significant legal setback

A European court ruled against Harvard University in a dispute over patents with NanoString Technologies. In doing so, it actually made one of its patents invalid across Germany, France, and the Netherlands. The central division of the European Union's unified patent court delivered a 55-page ruling that effects that, saying Harvard's patent is not novel, but could have been developed from work already published to anyone with requisite inventive skill.

This is a huge blow to Harvard in its long-standing litigation battle with NanoString. The same patent was declared invalid by a German patent court earlier this May. Harvard had appealed that case. Not only that, but late last year, a U.S. district court also allowed NanoString to file an antitrust suit against Harvard and biotech company 10x Genomics. Harvard's own lawsuit against NanoString is also being litigated in Germany, where 10x Genomics is also a party.

Bruker Corporation's parent company president, Todd Garland, said this "marks the third win for NanoString against an assertion by Harvard. According to him, the court's opinion reveals that 10x's claims were without merit and counterproductive to the scientific research community."

The technology, Xenium In Situ, developed by Harvard and branded as "single-cell spatial transcriptomics," was granted a patent in 2019. NanoString argued that the patent lacked an inventive step and clarity. The court agreed with NanoString, overruled Harvard's jurisdiction and differences in technology pleas, and issued a full revocation of the patent.