In February, GeneDx of Gaithersburg, Maryland, and Myriad Genetics of Salt Lake City, Utah, settled their patent dispute over BRCA testing, the final chapter of Myriad's losing battle to retain its dominance in breast cancer diagnosis. Five other companies similarly engaged in litigation over BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 testing—Ambry Genetics of Aliso Viejo, California; Gene by Gene of Houston; Quest Diagnostics of Madison, New Jersey; LabCorp of Burlington, North Carolina; and Invitae of San Francisco—had settled earlier this year. Myriad's attempt to retain its dominance in BRCA testing seemed like a losing proposition since the US Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that natural gene sequences are unpatentable (Ambry vs. Myriad Genetics). However, the court left open the possibility of patenting engineered molecules (cDNAs or oligos), which Myriad attempted to exploit to stop its competitors from offering BRCA tests. But in December 2014, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld an earlier ruling by the US District Court for Utah, denying Myriad's request for an injunction against its competitors. District Court Judge Selby had found last March that the company's primers and probes are not patentable because they have the same sequence as the natural gene. Once the appeal was denied, Myriad forged agreements with Ambry, Quest, LabCorp and Invitae (Gene by Gene and Myriad had settled earlier in 2014) and now GeneDx. Under the terms of the settlements, Myriad agrees not to pursue any further litigation over the patents mentioned in the suit, but will not be compensating anyone for legal costs incurred, (which some view as a small victory for Myriad). The company has been working on gene panels for various diseases and signaled its interest in protein diagnostics with a recent acquisition of Crescendo Bioscience.