Gene Patent Lawsuit Names Five California Firms

Oxford Gene Technology Ltd., a British biotechnology company, accused five California rivals and two other companies of infringing a patent for DNA sequencing that can help cure diseases and improve crops.

Named in lawsuits by Oxford are BD Biosciences Clontech of Palo Alto; Nanogen Inc. of San Diego; Axon Instruments Inc. of Union City; Biodiscovery Inc. of Marina del Rey; and Mergen Ltd. of San Leandro.

Oxford also sued PerkinElmer Life Sciences Inc. of Boston and Harvard Bioscience Inc. unit Genomic Solutions Inc. of Ann Arbor, Mich.

The seven companies don’t have permission to use the technology, patented in 2000, Oxford said in two federal lawsuits.

The suits were filed in Delaware and made public Thursday and Dec. 18.

Oxford says its rivals are using techniques invented by researcher Edwin Southern for arranging gene strands on glass slides for laboratory analysis.

The lawsuits ask for jury trials, unspecified damages and court orders to stop the companies from using Southern’s gene-chip invention in their businesses.

Another company, Affymetrix Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., was sued by Oxford in the same court in 1999 seeking damages over use of a similar technology. Affymetrix settled all litigation in 2001, for a $19-million charge.

Mergen’s director of business development, Jamie Love, said he was “surprised” at Oxford’s action, but couldn’t comment further.

Officials of the other companies were unavailable or unwilling to comment.

In New York Stock Exchange trading, Clontech parent Becton Dickinson & Co. closed unchanged at $30.49 and PerkinElmer rose 11 cents to close at $7.89. Harvard Bioscience rose 18 cents to $3.25 and Nanogen rose 16 cents to $1.51, both in Nasdaq trading.