Inventor Disputes DNA Sequencer Patent

syntap writes: "USA Today is reporting on a story on an argument between a research company and the California Institute of Technology over who 'owns' a particular DNA sequencing technology, and they want it placed in the public domain. 'The suit also claims that millions of federal dollars were used to create the device, which would give researchers backed by the government the rights to buy and use the sequencer without paying royalties. It demands that Caltech and Applera refund millions of dollars to federal agencies for royalties they paid on sequencers used in public research.'"

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[nucal]

For what it's worth: Henry Huang looks like he has a pretty impressive CV. He worked with Lee Hood from 1977-1982, a time period where Hood was making the transition from being a molecular immunologist to more of a DNA sequencing technologist. So the timing was right for him to have made a significant contribution to the DNA sequencing method. Pretty bad move to leave him off the patent if he did make a contribution.

MJ Research, who filed the lawsuit, is a manufacturer of "affordable" lab equipment - including thermocyclers for PCR amplificaton of DNA - which might have been a previous patent issue for them (since they don't explicitly mention PCR in the description). Judging from their product line, they'd like to crack the sequencing market. As an aside, they have offices "all over the world", including Lake Tahoe (Incline Village, NV) - I wonder if that's a condo?