China's biotech giant BGI vows to counter US company's lawsuit over patent infringement

By GT staff reporters Source: Global Times Published: 2020/8/18 11:58:55

China’s biotech giant BGI vows to counter US company’s lawsuit over patent infringement


Serbian lab operators learn how to use lab equipment. Photo: Courtesy of BGI



MGI Tech, a subsidiary of China's leading genetic-sequencing company BGI Group, has denounced US biotech company Illumina's decision to sue BGI subsidiaries over patent infringement, claiming that Illumina's lawsuit is a typical move by the company to maintain its market monopoly position.

The patent infringement lawsuit comes amid escalating China-US tensions, with the Trump administration ramping up efforts to crack down on Chinese enterprises that have become successful in recent years, especially those in the high-tech sector.

Illumina's lawsuit against Shenzhen-based BGI alleges the latter to be breaching a Hong Kong Standard Patent known as "Modified Nucleotides for Polynucleotide Sequencing," a method used in coronavirus research. 

Responding to the lawsuit, MGI Tech said in a statement released on its website on Monday that it was seeking verification, and that the specific impact of the suit has yet to be assessed. 

"The patent abuse lawsuit [of Illumina] is an old trick to maintain its market monopoly position and suppress industry development," the statement noted. "We will counter firmly and have initiated lawsuits against them in both California and Delaware." 

Illumina's lawsuit against BGI reportedly seeks to ban the company from making, using, stocking, supplying, and selling kits that involve the patent.

South China Morning Post cited the chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Medical Laboratories, saying the technique in dispute was related to next generation sequencing - a method for sequencing genomes at high speed and low cost, which has recently been used in coronavirus research around the world.

It is not the first time that Illumina and BGI have pursued legal actions against each other. Illumina has initiated lawsuits against MGI Tech over patent infringement in London, Munich, Stockholm and Zurich, with multiple lawsuits being dismissed. 

An industry insider who asked not to be named told the Global Times on Tuesday that the two had engaged in several patent lawsuits prior to this one, and accused Illumina of employing tactics to maintain its market monopoly and suppress industry development, adding that it "curbed legitimate competition in the field of global genetic sequencing equipment."

In addition to BGI, Illumina has also filed lawsuits against Doctors Laboratory, TDL Genetics and Ariosa Diagnostics from the UK, and Centrum Badan and Medgenetix from Poland in 2017.

Global Times



Posted in: INDUSTRIES,BIZ FOCUS

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