Life Technologies has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Illumina of San Diego and its Solexa subsidiary, to which the latter promptly responded with a countersuit. Life Technologies of Carlsbad, California, and its subsidiary Applied Biosystems (ABI) contend Illumina's Genome Analyzer products violate ABI patents describing nucleic acid amplification technology in which the clonal amplification products remain in a fixed location. Illumina and Solexa have denied all the allegations and are charging that Life Technologies' SOLiD sequencing system infringes four Solexa patents related to sample preparation, data gathering and genome analysis. “This is completely normal,” says David Resnick of Nixon Peabody in Boston. “It's just the dance they do.” The DNA sequencing companies have been engaged in this dance for some time already. In December 2006 ABI sued its former IP counsel, Stephen Macevicz, along with Illumina and Solexa, alleging he filed patents while working for Lynx Therapeutics (which later merged with Solexa) that he should have filed on behalf of ABI. In response, Illumina and Solexa charged that ABI's SOLiD system infringes several Solexa patents. Jury decisions thus far have fallen both ways suggesting little will change as a result of the latest litigations. In January, for example, a California jury reaffirmed Illumina's ownership of the disputed patent, whereas another jury pronounced that ABI did not infringe at least two other Solexa patents. The lawsuits are only likely to end, Resnick believes, “When they decide they've spent enough money on it.”