Talk:Affymetrix

Untitled
Hi,

We are four people who have decided to update the Affymetrix wiki page. While it may appear to be "in progress" for a few days, it will shortly look better than when it started. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)

'Patent portfolio' wording
I didn't start the word-crafting on the 'patent portfolio' section of the introductory paragraph, but I'm hoping to end it. The original statement was *ahem* very POV: "The company has an impressive patent portfolio in this area". I subsequently toned this down to read: "Affymetrix has a valuable patent portfolio". In the face of opposition to this toned down version, I've revised it a second time, so that it now reads: "Affymetrix derives significant benefit from its patent portfolio in this area".

A company's patent portfolio can be described as 'valuable' but the question is in what context. For instance, without patent protection, most pharmaceutical companies would outright die ... the patent portfolio is not only valuable to them, but 'life giving'. Some companies exist only to secure and trade patent rights; in those cases, patents are the companies. I suppose the question comes down to asking whether "the Hope Diamond is valuable" is a POV-statement or not, as the same logic would apply in this case, that the patent portfolio is valuable but less so or more so depending on the context in which the value is perceived. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 14:54, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
 * "Valuable" is subjective. "Has been appraised at a worth of X millions of dollars" is not.  "Considered valuable by X commentator" is not.  Subjective determinations need to be sourced to whoever's making the judgment. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:39, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

is valuable quick note
as a scientist who works at for profit competitors of affy, i can tell you that their patent estate has been extremely valuable - it really helped get affy huge amounts of biz by keeping others out. I don't have ref's handy, and am not sure i want to spend more time, as microarrrays are dying in the face of high speed dna sequencing (which delivers the same kind of info, but in a much better way) also, affy is clearly loosing market share to illumina. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cinnamon colbert (talk • contribs) 16:28, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I worked for Panomics and understand how their patent portfolio does affect what Affy can do. Currently the patent portfolio brought just from Panomics extend their technology to cover non quartz surfaces. This I believe would include membrane based surfaces such as plastics. The patents also cover various protein basis test that could be incorporated into their quartz chips too. It appears that this description of the company is a bit shallow and could be enhanced to reflect the true scope of the company.

One thing I can say is that when Panomics merged with Genospectria that Genospectria was trying to compete with Affy by printing the chips (on glass) instead of using Photolithography. They invested (wasted) 25million on this, as far as I understand they raised 50 million which they had to use in merging by the smaller but very valuable Panomics due to huge product line and patent portfolio.

Perhaps a few more links could be added to reference the exact technology in use.

Founder of Affymax
Not sure at this point if he cares to be remembered as the founder of Affymax/Affymetrix, but Alex Zaffaroni started this company. Here is a link to an article which mentions this. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2000/0501/6510154s2_print.html Psredpoppy (talk) 07:45, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

History of DNA microarrays
Can the article cite when the first microarray was sold and/or created by Affymetrix? Right now neither here, nor in the DNA Microarrays wikipedia article, is this mentioned. 2A02:8388:1600:C80:BE5F:F4FF:FECD:7CB2 (talk) 15:53, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Acquired
Affymetrix (former ticker symbol AFFX), was acquired by Thermo-Fisher (ticker symbol TMO) on 31 March 2016. https://www.genomeweb.com/business-news/thermo-fisher-completes-acquisition-affymetrix 71.139.161.30 (talk) 07:07, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

No longer a company, now a product line
As of 8/6/2017, this article was a mix of pre-acquisition present tense and post-acquisition past-tense, but in either case it described Affymetrix as a company. Someone in the know should consider a significant overhaul to the language (though not necessarily the content) to frame Affymetrix as an entity that was a company and is now a product line / brand within ThermoFisher. The current past tense of the article (or at least the header), while better than the ambiguous mix that preceded it, loosely implies that Affmyetrix no longer exists; this is not true, but it's not quite right to call it a company, and I'm not sure it's even quite right to call it a subsidiary now (because I'm not in the know); AFAIK it's a historical company and a current product line.

LittleWalrus (talk) 20:08, 6 August 2017 (UTC)