10x is dedicated to helping researchers advance science and improve human health.
- We have delivered multiple revolutionary technologies to researchers around the world.
- We listen closely to our customers to build products that are most responsive to their needs.
- Our products consistently outperform other tools.
- 7,500+: number of high-impact peer-reviewed papers using 10x products.
We use patents to foster innovation – not stifle it.
Without the ability to protect inventions, there would be little incentive for anyone to invest in innovation. Patents are critical to product development. They help fund future generations of life science tools. Patents also ensure inventors are properly recognized and rewarded for their contributions.
- $1.5 billion+: amount 10x Genomics has invested in research and development, resulting in dozens of groundbreaking tools for the scientific community.
- $500 million+: amount 10x Genomics has invested to license or acquire technologies developed by independent inventors. We pair these concepts and capabilities with our own internal product development work and expertise to bring world-class products to market.
- More than 380 past and present 10x employees have their names on our patents and applications.
- We will keep investing vigorously so we can keep innovating for our customers, but we can only do so if those investments can be protected.
We protect our intellectual property.
Given the company’s massive investments in R&D, 10x Genomics has a responsibility to our customers, employees and shareholders to protect our intellectual property from those who choose to infringe it.
- Entering litigation is not a decision we take lightly. We only do so on a rigorous and well-founded basis.
- We don’t use litigation to extract money through settlements or to burden others with litigation expenses.
- We pursue litigation to defend our intellectual property when others choose to tread on our patents. We do this because our intellectual property fuels and funds our continued product development.
- We expect fair and merit-based competition but cannot allow others to take our patented inventions.
Our products consistently outperform alternatives.
We have a track record of building revolutionary products, which demonstrates our commitment to competing with anyone. Our Chromium, Visium and Xenium platforms are proven to deliver superior performance and results for researchers.
- Our Chromium platform catalyzed the single cell revolution, enabling researchers with a broad portfolio of applications and breakthrough products that have consistently outperformed other offerings.
- Since launching Visium in 2019, we have built a strong portfolio with CytAssist and multiple products to establish Visium as the leading platform for spatial discovery.
- Since its launch, Xenium has shown superior performance and quickly became the leading and best-performing platform for in situ analysis.
- Multiple independent studies have compared Xenium to other in situ technologies using customer-generated data from their own instruments in their own labs and found that Xenium delivers:
- 2-15x better sensitivity than CosMx1,2
- 30-45x better specificity than CosMx1
- 3-4x higher throughput than CosMx3
- 3-14x better sensitivity than MERSCOPE1
- 3-5x better specificity than MERSCOPE1
1. Farhi et al. Systematic benchmarking of imaging spatial transcriptomics platforms in FFPE tissues. BioRxiv (2023) (Fig. 2 and underlying data).
2. Martelotto et al. A comparative analysis of imaging-based spatial transcriptomics platforms. BioRxiv (2023).
3. Comparison of single cell spatial transcriptomic platform performance in adjacent prostate adenocarcinoma sections. Oz Single Cell (2023). https://www.martelottolab.org/
We help inventors realize the full potential of their ideas.
We are incredibly proud of the hard work and creativity of the 10x team. At the same time, we recognize that good ideas can come from anywhere.
- We conduct rigorous assessments of technologies and inventions around the world to identify capabilities that fit our product development strategy.
- We are very diligent in working with inventors outside of 10x to properly bring their inventions into our products and reward them appropriately.
- We have a track record of taking acquired or licensed technologies from invention to commercialization.
- When we license or acquire an early-stage technology, we then invest years of our own inventions and efforts to build them into best-in-class commercial products with robust multi-year R&D pipelines.
- To build our Visium and Xenium platforms, for example, we brought together patented inventions from multiple external parties combined with our own in-house multidisciplinary expertise to launch a broad portfolio of leading instruments, consumables and software tools.
NanoString is promoting a false narrative to deflect blame.
NanoString’s management has been well aware of others' patents for years. Instead of choosing to license the necessary patents or innovate around them, NanoString’s management chose to infringe them. They have tried to take a free ride on the hard work of our team and some of the earliest pioneers in the field.
- These are not just allegations: three separate courts have heard mountains of evidence and found that NanoString infringes nine 10x patents across two product lines. NanoString was subsequently found to have violated the injunctions put in place by the courts.
- NanoString’s management was aware of the spatial biology patents that it was found to infringe. They circulated an early abstract broadly within the company and even met with the sole inventor before 10x licensed the patents.
- Willful: a 12-person jury that heard all the evidence in the United States determined that NanoString “willfully infringed” because it “acted maliciously, deliberately or in bad faith” in infringing 10x’s patent rights.
- Three years: amount of time NanoString has been officially “on notice” of its patent infringement. During this time, NanoString could have retooled its products to avoid infringement, however, the company made no attempt to do so and continued promoting and selling its infringing products to the research community.
Poor decisions by NanoString’s management led to its bankruptcy.
NanoString’s management failed to build a sustainable company after more than 20 years in business, taking on massive debt while burning large amounts of cash well before 10x even filed the first patent infringement case.
- $230 million: debt in convertible notes issued by NanoString in 2020 (Source).
- $100+ million: average annual cash burn for last five years (Free Cash Flow, Source: SEC filings and investor presentations).
- 6-12 months: estimated amount of cash NanoString had left as of September 30, 2023, before the District Court of Delaware ruling (Total cash and cash equivalents; Source).
- $2.6 million: bonus paid to CEO Brad Gray just days prior to declaring bankruptcy (Source).
- €2.3 million: amount of the security bond that NanoString could post to resume CosMx sales in Germany, which they have yet to pay.
- $0: amount NanoString has paid 10x Genomics.
Long before any litigation, NanoString’s management sought to “crush 10x.”
We have been consistently focused on bringing great products to market, while NanoString’s management has been focused on “dominating” the field and hurting 10x.
In early 2020, NanoString’s management waged an aggressive “war” on 10x, according to multiple internal documents shown in court:
Selection of excerpts from internal NanoString documents
Three separate courts have found that NanoString infringes 10x patents, and we firmly expect that the courts will continue to uphold our claims.
- On May 17, 2023, after a trial, a three-judge panel with legal and technical experts for the Munich Regional Court found that NanoString’s CosMx products infringe 10x’s patent and issued a permanent injunction requiring NanoString to stop selling and supplying CosMx instruments and reagents for RNA detection in Germany.
- On September 19, 2023, after a trial, a four-judge panel with legal and technical experts of the Unified Patent Court (“UPC”) found that NanoString’s CosMx Spatial Molecular Imager and associated instruments, reagents and services for RNA detection infringed 10x’s patent and issued a preliminary injunction against NanoString.
- On November 17, 2023, after a trial, a 12-person jury in the United States District Court of Delaware unanimously found NanoString willfully infringed seven 10x patents. The jury awarded more than $31 million in damages as a result of NanoString’s sales of its GeoMx Digital Spatial Profiler products and services.
- Recently, the Unified Patent Court of Appeal overturned the preliminary injunction of the lower court. This ruling will not deter our commitment to protect our intellectual property. It is an interim ruling related to only preliminary injunctive relief. We will continue to pursue our case through the “main action.”
- We firmly believe that the courts will continue to find that NanoString infringes our patents.
