UK 09:10 Sunday, 27 September 2026
Breaking news and expert analysis on fast-moving AIM and LSE listed shares
Disclosure: Financial Investigative Media Limited, which is not owned by Tom Winnifrith but by a trust for his dependants, owns shares in companies mentioned in this article. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from ShareProphets). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Premaitha Health (NIPT) has noted an announcement from Illumina, Inc. of patent infringement suits against Premaitha's customer in Poland and Ariosa Diagnostics, a subsidiary of Roche, and their customer, The Doctors Laboratory, in the UK, while reiterating that it “continues to make a robust defence against earlier claims by Illumina and the board is confident that the IONA test does not infringe the patents as claimed in the earlier cases or in relation to today's announcement”
Already a member? Sign in
• All premium articles
• Tom Winnifrith’s Bearcast
• Access to all the entire nearly 13 year archive
• ShareProphets Daily Newsletter
Cancel any time
This area of the ShareProphets.com site is for independent financial commentary. These blogs are provided by independent authors via a common carrier platform and do not represent the opinions of ShareProphets.com. ShareProphets.com does not monitor, approve, endorse or exert editorial control over these articles and does not therefore accept responsibility for or make any warranties in connection with or recommend that you or any third party rely on such information. The information available at ShareProphets.com is for your general information and use and is not intended to address your particular requirements. In particular, the information does not constitute any form of advice or recommendation by ShareProphets.com and is not intended to be relied upon by users in making (or refraining from making) any investment decisions.
Comments
wildrides
Sell and buy back lower at time of court case . Clearly anyone dealing with NIPT is likely to get their arse sued off at present ,which will inhibit new deals being won pre court case outcome.
Simple Moving Avarice
There are some worrying signs here. I have worked in companies where every member of the technical staff was expected to file at least one patent per year no matter what. It’s a numbers game these days. You need huge numbers of – probably fairly low quality – patents. But quantity is everything – hundreds or even thousands of patents.
If you are accused of infringing someone else’s patent, you have to wave your own patent portfolio back at them and come to a mutual cross-licensing agreement. It is usually a complete waste of time and money to fight an individual patent through the courts. Illumina are playing this one exactly as you would expect from a company with a big patent portfolio going after a small company with no or few patents. First they claimed two infringements; then they found another one; now they are going after customers. Just like the Terminator, they absolutely will not stop. If NIPT do fight off the three patents currently alleged to be infringing, another three may well pop up. Illumina have at least 250 patents to call upon.
It is not a good sign that NIPT do not appear to have any kind of patent portfolio at all to fight back with. They need to be knee-deep in patents (regardless of quality or obviousness) to swim in the shark-invested waters that they inhabit or they will be eaten alive. CE marks alone are not going to cut it.
Drunken Sailor
Companies involved in court cases is a red flag for very good reasons. Forget any idea that justice will always prevail and those in the right will eventually get what they deserve and those in the wrong will get what they deserve – courts give judgments not justice and a lot of the time things get settled out of court.
This sort of thing is just like a hand of poker. Both sides have to outwardly express supreme confidence in their hand whilst stacking the table with more and more chips in the form of legal fees. Illumina have just raised by starting lawsuits against customers. They will no doubt create a load more spurious filings to slow the whole thing down raise legal costs further. They may be bluffing, they may not, we may never find out if NIPT is eventually forced to settle out of court. It is very often the side with the most money to spunk away in legal fees that emerges at least partially victorious. Does NIPT have the money to really play this game? It could be a very long and expensive one with the share price getting steadily eroded and cash needing to be raised in the market to keep it going. Anyone who wants to go on this journey with them ought to get access to all the filings and read what both sides are saying carefully and see what sort of legal tricks are being played. That is a lot of research and talking to the management will not help you with it as they must remain supremely confident at all times.
Having said all that NIPT is still a better gamble than LGO.