Sequenom agaonst Ariosa

Sequenom and Ariosa are the two parties named in the NYT article in the previous post.  As usual, it is not that simple.  There are several parties on both sides and a lot of cross suing going on.  But my research has revealed one of the patents (there may be more) involved in the case.  USPN 6,258,540 is directed to:

"Non-invasive prenatal diagnosis."

The Abstract of the Patent: "The invention relates to a detection method performed on a maternal serum or plasma sample from a pregnant female, which method comprises detecting the presence of a nucleic acid of foetal origin in the sample. The invention enables non-invasive prenatal diagnosis including for example sex determination, blood typing and other genotyping, and detection of pre-eclampsia in the mother."
Talk about ethics!  This one's a beaut.

Here's a link to the patent:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6258540.PN.&OS=PN/6258540&RS=PN/6258540