In March, Enzo Biochem announced that the US Board of Patents and Interferences entered judgment in its favor for its patent application for nucleic acid signal amplification over two Princeton University patents. The Chido Companies, owner of Clean Air Labs, established a strategic partnership with Roche Diagnostics to set a DNA-based standard for mold detection and to jointly market and codevelop new products. Eppendorf India will market worldwide Polyclone Bioservices’ eprime software for designing primers. In April, DuPont announced that it settled its patent infringement litigation against Bio-Rad (see IBO 11/30/06) related to low-heat generating fluorometers, and that it granted Bio-Rad a license to the disputed patents. Finnzymes Instruments Oy will design and manufacture molecular biology instruments for Sage Science. Takara Bio granted Transgenomic a license to its LA-PCR technology. In May, NuGEN Technologies licensed bioMérieux’s linear amplification technologies using chimeric primers, including OEM rights for the research markets, and bioMérieux licensed NuGEN’s amplification technologies. SanAir Technologies Laboratory will conduct a trial program with Gene Systems to compare qPCR testing protocols with existing protocols for the identification of Legionella and bacteria in water. In May, Stratagene received a notice of a Writ of Summons, alleging that its Mx3000P, Mx3005P and Mx4000P instruments and certain reagents infringed Applera’s EU Patent No. 872562 B1 related to real-time PCR. Applied Biosystems and the US Dept. of Defense terminated their contract because they were unable to agree on the approach to developing a prototype system. In June, SuperArray Bioscience entered into a PCR license agreement with Applied Biosystems. Warnex sold the assets of its pathogen detection business to AES Laboratoire in June for $900,000 in cash. Roche Applied Science and Eppendorf AG entered into a comarketing agreement for their respective RTS reagents portfolio and Thermomixer comfort system, which will replace Roche’s RTS Proteomaster. Fluidigm named BIOKÉ the exclusive distributor of its BioMark System for real-time PCR in the Benelux.