Illumina Inc. and Sequenom Inc. announced Dec. 3 a settlement of infringement litigation over prenatal testing claims and other disputes between Sequenom and Illumina subsidiary Verinata Health Inc. (Ariosa Diagnostics v. Sequenom, Inc., Fed. Cir., No. 14-01139 and Verinata Health, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., N.D. Cal., No. 3:12-cv-00865). Illumina agreed to pay Sequenom $50 million up front and will make payments through 2020. The companies, both of which are based in San Diego, didn’t disclose the amount of those payments. Under the agreement, the parties will pool their owned and in-licensed intellectual property directed to noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT), and Illumina will have exclusive worldwide rights to use it to develop and sell in vitro diagnostic kits for NIPT and to license third-party laboratories wishing to develop and sell their own laboratory-developed NIPT tests covered by the pooled patents. In addition, Sequenom and Illumina will each have rights to use all pooled patents to develop and sell their own laboratory-developed NIPT tests. The parties will share the revenue from the patent pool, and Illumina will pay Sequenom a royalty on sales of in vitro diagnostic kits for NIPT. The pooled owned and in-licensed intellectual property directed to NIPT includes patents…
