European Court Invalidates Harvard Biotech Patent in Three Countries

A top European court ruled against Harvard last week in a patent dispute against biotech company NanoString Technologies, invalidating one of the University’s two disputed patents in three European countries.

In a 55-page ruling issued by the Central Division of the European Union’s Unified Patent Court, a three-judge panel found that Harvard’s patent — which was enforced in Germany, France, and the Netherlands — “lacks novelty,” writing that its technology could have been developed on previously published research “without inventive skill.”

The ruling is the latest blow for Harvard in its transatlantic legal battle against NanoString. A German patent court had already previously invalidated the patent in Germany in May, prompting the University to appeal. A U.S. district court judge allowed NanoString to sue Harvard and biotech company 10x Genomics over potential antitrust violations last year. 10x Genomics is also a party to Harvard’s litigation against NanoString in Germany.

Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton declined to comment.

Todd Garland, the president of the spatial biology division at NanoString’s parent company Bruker Corporation, was quoted in press release last week that the ruling “marks the third decision of three separate courts in less than a year vindicating our view that the patents being asserted against us by 10x are invalid.”

“The UPC’s decision supports our belief that 10x’s claims are meritless and that 10x’s litigation tactics run counter to the interests of the scientific research community,” Garland said, according to the press release.

Harvard first received its patent for Xenium In Situ — a “single-cell spatial transcriptomics” technology for measuring and mapping gene activity in tissue samples — in 2019, before the European branch of the U.S.-based NanoString asked the court to revoke Harvard’s patent in July 2023. The technology, which was developed at Harvard, is owned by 10x Genomics.

NanoString argued that the patent was “not based on an inventive step” and did “not disclose the invention in a manner sufficiently clear and complete for it to be carried out,” calling on the court to revoke the University’s patent in all three European countries.

The panel ruled in favor of NanoString and rejected Harvard’s argument that the court didn’t have jurisdiction given the ongoing dispute in German courts, writing that the court had “international jurisdiction and will not stay the proceedings in view of the German revocation action.” Harvard had withdrawn the argument at an oral hearing last month.

Harvard had also argued that there were significant differences between its technology and similar work published in 2008 by Swedish professor Jenny Göransson. But in its ruling, the panel wrote that it “does not follow the Defendant’s interpretation of the claimed subject matter and thus comes to the conclusion that Göransson is novelty destroying” for the patent.

The court also rejected Harvard’s attempts to edit the patent language, finding that there was no “inventive step” that justified the University’s patent.

“The patent must therefore be revoked in its entirety,” the panel wrote.