Intellectual Property (IP)

Oxford Nanopore has a broad patent portfolio, through in-house development and licensing agreements with third parties.  The Company has licensed or owns more than 300 patents and patent applications that cover all aspects of nanopore sensing including fundamental patents for nanopore sensing and patents relating to DNA sequencing.

 

Oxford Nanopore is developing a platform technology that may be adapted with a variety of nanopore sensors for the analysis of different molecules.  The IP portfolio reflects the broad range of expertise and active R&D projects that are in progress at Oxford Nanopore and supported research within the laboratories of our academic collaborators.  These projects include the development of nanopore DNA sequencing technology (strand sequencing and exonuclease sequencing), protein analysis, and the development of solid state nanopores including graphene.

The Company was initially founded in 2005 on science from the laboratory of Professor Hagan Bayley of the University of Oxford and maintains a broad range of IP licenses with this institution. In 2008 a series of agreements were announced to exclusively develop and commercialise discoveries from nanopore research laboratories at Harvard (including discoveries at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST) and University of California Santa Cruz.  These extended a portfolio that also includes Texas A&M and the University of Massachusetts Medical School.   

The following  themes are included in Oxford Nanopore's patent portfolio:

  • DNA base identification using a biological nanopore
  • Characterisation of individual polymer molecules based on monomer-interface interactions
  • Addition of adapters to nanopores for sensing
  • Genetically modified nanopores for sensing
  • Combining nanopores and enzymes for sensing
  • Use of molecular motors in combination with nanopores
  • Use of solid state nanopores for detecting labelled ssDNA and dsDNA, including the positional measurement of probes
  • Planar lipid bilayer array chip for parallel sensing from multiple channels
  • The use of functionalised solid-state nanopores for molecular characterisation, including graphene. Modifications of solid-state nanopores might include nanotubes, for example
  • Methods of fabricating solid-state nanopores 
  • The use of multiple 'nodes' to analyse a single sample in a federated/clustered manner
  • Time-multiplexed nanopore measurements on a single chip, including the incorporation of 96 well plates
  • Methods and algorithms for nanopore signal analysis