Patent ID: 6879915

Claim:
A method of using an addressable array of biopolymers on a substrate, comprising: (a) receiving an array of addressable biopolymer regions and an associated machine readable identifier carried on an array substrate or array housing; (b) exposing the array to a sample; (c) reading the array; (d) machine reading the identifier as an identifier signal; and (e) retrieving updated biological function data for one or more of the biopolymers from a memory based on the identifier signal, wherein the retrieved biological function data comprises information on the function of a target of the array, or its complement, or the gene from which either originated; wherein the retrieval of the biological function data includes: communicating the identifier signal to a processor which retrieves data on the identity of the biopolymers based on the read identifier, and communicating the identity data on the biopolymers to a processor which retrieves the biological function data for one or more of the biopolymers from a memory based on the retrieved identity data.