Company: ADPT
Filing Date: 2025-03-03
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-030913
Chunk: 27

Company: Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp
Filing Date: 2025-03-03
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 27
---
 moat around technology we use as well as what others might develop to design around our position. 

We prioritize pursuing patent claims with a reasonable likelihood of being granted. Where patentability for a particular invention is questionable, we often choose to protect it as a trade secret instead. In some instances, however, we may seek to push the patentability envelope when the state of the applicable patent laws are in flux, such as patent eligibility for naturally occurring molecules, including TCRs, in the U.S. 

15

Methods of Measuring Adaptive Immunity 

In 2009, a U.S. provisional patent application was filed to pursue protection for immunosequencing by our co-founder, Dr. Harlan Robins. The invention broadly relates to methods for assessing the adaptive immune system status of individuals. Rearranged V and J segment genes of TCRs or BCRs are targeted as biomarkers for assessing the status of the immune system at one or more points in time. Granted claims extend to the use of particular sets of amplification primers, while pending claims are being pursued to capture additional assessment techniques. Licensed exclusively to us by Fred Hutch, the application has since spawned 28 additional patent applications, many of which have been granted as of December 31, 2024, including U.S. Patent No. 9,809,813. 

Optimizing Nucleic Acid Amplification Reactions 

Amplification of nucleic acids can result in over- or under-representation of the amplified molecules, misrepresenting the number present in the source material, such as a blood sample. Dr. Robins invented a method to correct for such bias, thereby improving the precision of PCR-based quantification of TCR and BCR coding sequences in a sample. The claimed approach utilizes synthetic templates, reflecting nucleic acid sequences for rearranged V and J receptor segments in the sampled cells. Twenty-three related patent applications have since been filed, many of which have been granted as of December 31, 2024, including U.S. Patent Nos. 9,371,558 and 10,214,770.

Diagnosing and Monitoring Disease 

In connection with our acquisition (“Sequenta Acquisition”) of Sequenta, Inc. (“Sequenta”) in 2015, we purchased Sequenta’s extensive patent portfolio. The portfolio includes 124 patent applications which disclose and claim methods to identify and quantify T cell-based immune responses to antigen exposure using NGS. TCR and BCR DNA, ribon