Oxford Nanopore announces favourable outcome in UK and German patent litigation against Pacific Biosciences

Oxford Nanopore and Pacific Biosciences have agreed to discontinue UK and German litigation. In the settlement, Oxford Nanopore agreed not to sell its 2D kits in UK and Germany. 2D is, in any case, obsolete and was globally discontinued in May 2017, when Oxford Nanopore replaced it with the superior 1D^{^}2 method.

Oxford Nanopore will continue to sell 1D^{^}2 and other kits.

Gordon Sanghera, CEO of Oxford Nanopore, said: “We do not infringe their patents and the settlement has no impact on our current business or on our future plans. It is reassuring that PacBio has not succeeded in its strategy to try to prevent us from selling our real-time, scalable, ultra-long read, direct sequencing technology. In the meantime, we’re busy innovating and our technology continues to improve rapidly. Tune in, in two weeks, when 600 people will gather for London Calling. The conference will feature talks from 80 researchers at the forefront of nanopore sequencing in microbiology, cancer research, plant genetics, human genetics, environmental analysis, food & water surveillance, and healthcare/diagnostics, across our technology range including MinION, GridION and PromethION."