10x Genomics, Inc. v. Parse Biosciences, Inc.

10x Genomics, Inc. v. Parse Biosciences, Inc. The Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s obviousness determinations. Substantial evidence supported the Board’s findings on motivation to combine, use of ligation as an obvious design choice for flexibility, and disclosure of the challenged “correlate” limitations; the court also rejected an unpreserved motivation-to-combine challenge to the ’013 patent IPR. The decision underscores the difficulty of overturning PTAB obviousness findings where the Board credits expert testimony and prior-art disclosures supporting a practical motivation to combine, especially when appellate arguments were not squarely preserved below. Affirmed. The challenged patents concern methods for analyzing or counting nucleic acids from single cells using tag sequences to identify cell source and distinguish molecules from the same cell. The court held that substantial evidence supported the Board’s finding that a skilled artisan would have combined Linnarsson and McCloskey to reduce amplification bias; McCloskey was not limited to seven-nucleotide barcodes, and the rationale did not require tagging every mRNA molecule in a cell. The court rejected 10x’s argument that Linnarsson was limited to mammalian cells, citing disclosures allowing use with prokaryotic or eukaryotic single-celled organisms including bacteria or yeast. For the ’981 patent’s “correlate” limitations, the court found substantial evidence because the petition relied on Linnarsson—not McCloskey’s batch stamp alone—for the cell-specific tag used to correlate sequences to their source cell. For ligation limitations, the court held substantial evidence supported the Board’s finding that using ligation to add a second tag was an obvious design choice that increased process flexibility. § 103 waiver / forfeiture non-precedential § 103 waiver / forfeiture non-precedential § 103 waiver / forfeiture non-precedential