Amid the COVID-19 crisis, non-practicing entity, Labrador Diagnostics, LLC, an NPE owned by Fortress Investment Group (Softbank), has asserted two diagnostic testing patents originally owned by Theranos, the now-defunct diagnostics company run by Elizabeth Holmes. Holmes is now under Federal indictment for fraud and listed as the lead inventor on both patents. Those patents read on testing for strains of coronavirus; the suit continues. 

In light of the important public interest concerns this raises, and as part of the Open Covid Pledge, Unified Patents asked the public for prior art or other grounds of invalidity for claim 1 of U.S. Patent 10,533,994 and for claim 1 of U.S. Patent 8,283,155. In addition to the submissions below, APEX STANDARDS, a standard-essentiality and patent-validity analysis provider, has shared US and non-US prior arts, as well as, corresponding claim charts against US 10,533,994 and US 8,283,155 (click on the links to view their results).

The winning submissions for both the U.S. Patent 10,533,994 and U.S. Patent 8,283,155 were by the search team at Murgitroyd.

Unified retains no rights and offers permission to the public to reproduce, distribute, perform, display, or adapt any of the following. 

In addition to the submissions above, Unified also received the following submissions for US 10,533,994 (Holmes I):

• US 5,891,734

• US 2003/0114735A1

• US 2001/0045355A1

Unified also received the following submissions for US 8,283,155 (Holmes II):

• WO 2005/074161