Carpmaels steps up for Curio as 10x Genomics challenges competitor at UPC

Today the Düsseldorf local division will hear another application for a preliminary injunction by 10X Genomics against competitor, Curio Bioscience. However, the defendant has forgone local counsel, with Carpmaels & Ransford instead taking over the defence. The case marks the first time that a UK law firm will conduct UPC proceedings completely independently.

At the Unified Patent Court, US-based company 10X Genomics accuses Curio Bioscience of infringing its European patent EP 2 697 391 which protects a method and product for localised or spatial detection of nucleic acid in a tissue sample.

In December, the company filed an application for a PI with the Düsseldorf local division (case ID: ACT_590953/2023) directed against Curio’s Seeker Spatial Transcriptomics Kits. These enable the spatial mapping of the entire transcriptome of tissue. The 10X Genomics Visium platform uses similar spatial transcriptomics technology. With the filing, 10X Genomics wants to stop sales in Germany, France and Sweden.

According to several reports in the US media, in early December 10X Genomics also sued Curio Bioscience over several patents at the US District Court of Delaware. Currently the US biotech company is not directed against its long-term rival NanoString, but against another competitor.

10x Genomics active at UPC

Biotech company 10X Genomics is one of the UPC’s most active claimants. On the court’s first day, it filed lawsuits against competitor NanoString at the Munich local division, followed by another lawsuit against Vizgen at the Hamburg local division.

Two PI proceedings and two main proceedings are now pending against NanoString in Munich, with the PI proceedings in particular attracting attention.

Initially, the Munich local division did not want to grant 10x Genomics a PI. But the court granted the second PI and stopped the sale of NanoString’s CosMx Spatial Molecular Imager (SMI) instruments and CosMx reagents for RNA detection in Europe.

At the end of February, however, the UPC Court of Appeal overturned the Munich local division’s preliminary injunction. The decision, which allowed NanoString to return to most European markets, was the Court of Appeal’s first decision in a UPC main proceeding.

Principles set a precedent

The UPC’s highest court has thus laid down far-reaching principles for PI proceedings; these will play an important role in today’s oral hearing in Düsseldorf. Accordingly, the UPC judges must be sufficiently convinced of a high probability that the patent-in-suit is valid if they issue a PI. As such, the patent must have a high probability of surviving a revocation attack in the main proceedings.

JUVE Patent is not yet aware whether 10X Genomics has filed a main UPC action against Curio Bioscience, or if a revocation action against EP 391 is pending. The patent does not currently play a role in the disputes with NanoString and Vizgen.