Codon Devices and Blue Heron Reach Settlement
Codon Devices and Blue Heron are two competitors in the rapidly growing large-scale gene synthesis market. The market is estimated at $50 million annually, according to The New York Times. On March 31, Codon also announced it had added $11 million to its Series B round of financing, bringing the total to $31 million.
Cambridge, MA and Bothell, WA 3/31/08—Synthetic biology firm Codon Devices and Blue Heron Biotechnology, a provider of gene synthesis services, have settled their legal dispute stemming from Codon’s 2007 suit against Blue Heron. The suit alleged infringement of four patents owned by Duke University (US Patent Nos. 5,459,039; 5,556,750; 5,679,522; and 5,702,894) and one MIT patent (US Patent No. 5,750,335), covering gene assembly and nucleic acid preparation and manufacturing. The patents are exclusively licensed to Codon. Under the settlement agreement, Codon granted Blue Heron a perpetual and fully paid sublicense to error correction technology. Financial terms were not disclosed.
