On July 10, 2019, the Federal Circuit ruled in favor of researchers from Chinese University of Hong Kong, finding that researchers from Stanford University who owned a fetal DNA testing patent did not include a vital part of its method for detecting Down syndrome in its written description. Therefore, the patent was ruled invalid, upholding the earlier Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision. Finnegan represented the researchers from Chinese University.
The case began in 2014 after the Chinese University researchers submitted a patent application covering a method for detecting chromosomal abnormality in fetuses. The Stanford University researchers then reworked their earlier filing of a similar application, which used target-based sequencing, to try and encompass the Chinese University researchers' method, which used random sequencing. However, the Stanford University researchers did not disclose the random sequencing method in their patent's specification—the specification described using targeted sequences, which rendered the patent invalid.
