The last week has seen a lot of chatter about the slapping down of the diagnostic patent by Sequenom, Judge Invalidates Patent for a Down Syndrome Test:
A federal judge has invalidated the central patent underlying a noninvasive method of detecting Down syndrome in fetuses without the risk of inducing a miscarriage.
The ruling is a blow to Sequenom, a California company that introduced the first such noninvasive test in 2011 and has been trying to lock out competitors in a fast-growing market by claiming they infringe on the patent.
Sequenom’s stock fell 23 percent on Thursday, to $1.92.
The judge, Susan Illston of the United States District Court in Northern California, issued a ruling on Wednesday that the patent was invalid because it covered a natural phenomenon — the presence of DNA from the fetus in the mother’s blood.
The existence of intellectual property is a utilitarian one. That is, these are institutions which are meant to further the cause of creativity and innovation. Is there going to be an abandonment in this domain of the push toward technological innovation? Coincidentally in the last week of October Sequenom put out a press release which heralded some advances in its panel:
…The MaterniT21 PLUS test will begin reporting additional findings for the presence of subchromosomal microdeletions and autosomal trisomies for chromosomes 16 and 22, in addition to the previously announced additional findings for sex chromosome aneuploidies involving an abnormal number of the X or Y chromosomes. These additional findings complement the MaterniT21 PLUS test core identification of trisomies for chromosome 21, chromosome 18 and chromosome 13. With this expansion, the MaterniT21 PLUS test is the first-of-its-kind noninvasive prenatal technology (NIPT) to provide these comprehensive results from a maternal blood draw.
Sequenom Laboratories will begin reporting on these select, clinically relevant microdeletions, including 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (DiGeorge), Cri-du-chat syndrome, Prader-Willi/Angelman syndrome, 1p36 deletion syndrome, as well as trisomies 16 and 22 the last week of October. Results from a method validation study….
It seems that the firm’s main path to profit and riches is going to be to innovate faster, gain market share, brand recognition, and economies of scale. This seems as if it is a greater good for the public than its rents extracted through intellectual property monopolies.
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