Patent Document ID: 20070166744
Application ID: 11639947
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A method for determining the presence of a nucleic acid in a sample, comprising: providing a reaction mixture containing said nucleic acid, detecting signals from said reaction mixture in known intervals, transforming said signals into measurement data, and creating from said measurement data a growth curve through a mathematical algorithm, wherein said mathematical algorithm comprises a mathematical growth curve model formula depending on between 5 and 11 parameters and wherein the optimal values of said parameters are determined by applying a regression fitting algorithm to said measurement data, said growth curve model formula comprising a background curve estimation, a saturation curve estimation, and an intermediate growth curve estimation according to the formula 
 1/(1+exp(− p 4 ( x−p 5 )))/(1+exp( −p 6 ( x−p 7 ))) wherein p 4 is the slope at the inflection point of a first multiplicative sigmoid function representing exponential growth, p 5 is the inflection point of a first multiplicative sigmoid function, p 6 is the slope at the inflection point of a second multiplicative sigmoid function representing saturation growth, and p 7 is the inflection point of a second multiplicative sigmoid function.