Aug. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Hyseq, Inc. (Nasdaq: HYSQ - news) announced today that the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has clarified the construction of certain terms in the Court's October 27, 1999 Markman order in Hyseq's litigation against Affymetrix, as requested by Hyseq. A ``Markman'' order is a procedural step for framing the claims at issue in a patent litigation. Today's ruling comes in Hyseq's litigation against Affymetrix for infringing Hyseq's sequencing-by- hybridization (SBH) patents.
``We are very pleased with the Court's ruling. Judge Whyte was faced with a complex task in interpreting the many terms in the claims of our patents, and we are very pleased with his interpretations,'' stated Dr. George B. Rathmann, Hyseq's President and Chief Executive Officer.
The Court ruled today that the term ``probes'' as used in Hyseq's patents ``can be either labeled or unlabeled, or maybe in solution or attached to a filter or substrate,'' thus rejecting Affymetrix' assertion that Hyseq's patents only cover the use of oligonucleotide probes in solution. The Court also ruled today that the term ``sequencing'' means simply ``determining the linear order of bases for the entire length of a nucleic acid fragment,'' thereby rejecting Affymetrix' argument that the term should not cover methods for resequencing or polymorphism detection. Finally, the Court ruled that the term hybridization ``conditions'' does not exclude the possibility of experimental error in the ``hybridization washing and detection of processes'' of SBH, rejecting Affymetrix' argument that perfect differentiation is required.
In the Court's October 27, 1999 Markman order, the Court rejected Affymetrix' argument that Hyseq's claims apply only to ``de novo'' sequencing of fragments, and clearly defined the term ``sequencing'' and ``fragments'' in the claims of Hyseq's three patents-in-suit to include nucleic acid fragments of the length utilized by Affymetrix. The Court allowed the parties to request clarification of the October 27, 1999 order in further briefing, and held a hearing on February 22, 2000 to allow each party to explain its positions.
Hyseq's litigation with Affymetrix involves several cases where Hyseq is asserting its patent rights and defending its patented technologies against Affymetrix. Yesterday's ruling comes in the case before Judge Whyte, which Hyseq filed against Affymetrix in March 1997 (Hyseq, Inc. v. Affymetrix, Inc., Case No. C-97 20188 RMW (PVT), U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California San Jose Division) alleging infringement by Affymetrix of Hyseq's U.S. Patent No. 5,202,231 and U.S. Patent No. 5,525,464. Hyseq filed a second case against Affymetrix in December 1997 (Hyseq, Inc. v. Affymetrix, Inc., Case No. C-97 4469 THE) alleging infringement by Affymetrix of Hyseq's U.S. Patent No. 5,695,940 which was consolidated with the first case before Judge Whyte. |
