A U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit panel on Tuesday confirmed that a number of biotechnology patents filed by Pacific Biosciences were invalid, upholding findings reached in March 2020 by the U.S. District of Delaware’s final pre-pandemic jury, which found in favor of a British-based pharma company.

The patents at issue related to DNA sequencing technology, which Pacific Biosciences of California Inc. claimed that counsel for Oxford Nanopore Technologies had unfairly played up as relevant to the pandemic.