This article has been update from a previous version to reflect a correction made by Qiagen to the relevant European Patent number.
NEW YORK – Qiagen said on Monday that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against BioMérieux in Germany for allegedly infringing a patent related to its QuantiFeron tuberculosis testing technology.
In the complaint, filed in the Local Division of the Court of First Instance of the Unified Patent Court in Duesseldorf, Qiagen alleges that BioMérieux infringes European Patent EP 2 726 883 B2, which Qiagen said is one of many protecting the company's QuantiFeron interferon-gamma release assay technology for latent TB detection.
Specifically, Qiagen said the patent covers important innovations in the company's QuantiFeron-TB Gold Plus test.
Qiagen did not name the infringing BioMérieux product or products in its statement, but BioMérieux markets the Vidas TB-IGRA fully automated test for TB infection for use on its Vidas 3 immunoanalyzer.
Last month, Qiagen announced that the German Federal Patent Court had ruled in its favor regarding a patent infringement lawsuit it filed against SD Biosensor. That lawsuit concerned European Patent EP 3,421,997.
"Protecting our intellectual property is essential to ensuring continued innovation in infectious disease diagnostics," Qiagen CEO Thierry Bernard said in a statement. "QuantiFeron has transformed latent tuberculosis testing, and we will always take the necessary legal steps to defend our proprietary technologies against infringement."