Defendant
2 cases as defendant.
Hyseq, Inc. — company profile
Hyseq, Inc. (also styled Hyseq Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) was a biotechnology company headquartered at 670 Almanor Avenue, Sunnyvale, California. It was founded in 1992 (per the Nuvelo corporate history; some contemporaneous press accounts give 1994) and went public in 1997 on Nasdaq under the ticker HYSQ. It was a public operating company, not a shell or patent-assertion vehicle. As of November 15, 2002, Hyseq reported roughly 155 full-time-equivalent employees, and it recorded about $26.4 million in contract revenues for 2002.
Operations. Hyseq was built on sequencing-by-hybridization (SBH) and high-density DNA array technology for gene discovery. Its platform included the HyChip sequencing chip, the HyGenomics gene-sequence database, and related bioinformatics and high-throughput screening tools; it also pursued gene-based therapeutics and diagnostics and licensed technology to partners. A majority-owned subsidiary, Callida Genomics, was created with Applied Biosystems to advance sequencing technology. Major revenue came from a plant-gene sequencing collaboration with American Cyanamid/BASF Plant Science and from license arrangements. In 2001–2002 Hyseq shifted toward drug development, in-licensing alfimeprase (a fibrinolytic) from Amgen.
Patent-litigation posture. In the tracked case data, Hyseq appears once, as a defendant: Affymetrix, Inc. v. Hyseq, Inc., filed August 18, 1998 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (0 plaintiff cases, 1 defendant case). External coverage indicates the dispute was two-way: Hyseq had itself asserted SBH patents (U.S. 5,202,231; 5,525,464; 5,695,940) against Affymetrix in 1997 suits, while Affymetrix asserted DNA-array patents (including the ’934, ’305 and ’992 patents) against Hyseq, Synteni and Incyte. The N.D. Cal. court issued a consolidated claim-construction ruling, Affymetrix, Inc. v. Hyseq, Inc., 132 F. Supp. 2d 1212 (2001). The parties settled in October 2001, with Affymetrix making a $4 million license payment and the Callida Genomics subsidiary being formed.
Later context. Hyseq merged with Variagenics, Inc. in January 2003 and renamed itself Nuvelo, Inc. (Nasdaq: NUVO). Nuvelo was acquired by ARCA Biopharma in a reverse merger completed January 27, 2009; the entity's lineage continues under the ARCA/Oruka Therapeutics name.
Affymetrix sued Hyseq in the Northern District of California, initially asserting US 5,744,305 and US 5,795,716; the complaint was amended on September 1, 1998 to add US 5,800,992 claims 1 and 3. The case proceeded through Markman claim construction, but the narrative could not confirm a final judgment or settlement.
Affymetrix brought an action against Hyseq and Incyte in the Northern District of California asserting Affymetrix's own array patents ('934, '305, '992, and '716). The 2001 decision at 132 F. Supp. 2d 1212 is a Markman claim-construction ruling and did not address US 6,018,041.