Bruker announced on Tuesday that the German Federal Patent Court has ruled invalid the German part of a patent at the heart of a lawsuit brought by 10x Genomics against NanoString Technologies, now a Bruker subsidiary.
10x Genomics asserted that the patent in question, European Patent 2794928B1, referred to as the "928 Patent," was infringed by NanoString in its CosMx Spatial Molecular Imager (SMI) products for RNA detection in the case in Germany, as well as in a case in the European Unified Patent Court (UPC), the pan-European patent-dispute court.
In a case before the UPC's Court of Appeal in Luxembourg in February on the related European Patent 4108782B1 (the "782 Patent"), the court overturned a preliminary injunction issued by the UPC's Munich local division in September, noting in its ruling that it was likely "that the patent at issue will not prove to be valid." This decision allowed NanoString to resume selling its CosMx SMI products in 16 UPC member countries.
Bruker acquired NanoString in April, following NanoString filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In November 2023, 10x Genomics was awarded $31 million in its patent infringement lawsuit against NanoString Technologies in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware; the jury in that case found that NanoString's GeoMx Digital Spatial Profiler infringed on seven patents held by 10x.
