In a patent battle between the two main players in long-read sequencing, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in February upheld an earlier ruling that DNA sequencers imported by UK-based Oxford Nanopore Technologies for sale in the United States do not violate two of Pacific Biosciences patents. The dispute came about after PacBio alleged that Oxford Nanopore’s MinION and PromethION sequencers infringed one of its patents by using an identical method to its own invention to analyze DNA strands. Later, PacBio amended its filing to allege that Oxford Nanopore’s products infringed a second patent. The recent one-sentence decision by the Court of Appeals affirms the February 2018 ruling by the International Trade Commission (ITC) in favor of Oxford Nanopore, but does not expand on its reasons; however, the ruling comes on the heels of a European Patent Office decision in January revoking PacBio’s patent EP3045542, with claims to a single molecule sequencing process, which was challenged by Oxford Nanopore. “The ITC correctly held that Oxford Nanopore’s technology does not infringe PacBio’s patents,” Stephen Hash, the attorney representing Oxford Nanopore, told legal publication Law360. “We are very happy with the Federal Circuit’s affirmance of that determination.” Gordon Sanghera, Oxford Nanopore’s CEO, added in a statement, “Pacific Biosciences has not succeeded in its strategy to try to prevent us from selling our real-time, direct sequencing technology.”