Caliper Announces Issuance of Five New Microfluidic Patents
(see A ref. at end)
16 New Patents Issued Since June, Bringing Total Issued in U.S. to 69
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Nov. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Caliper Technologies Corp. (Nasdaq: CALP) announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued five new patents to Caliper that covers broad areas of microfluidic technology and expands Caliper's proprietary position in high throughput experimentation in microfluidic chips.
U.S. patent 6,150,180, entitled "High throughput screening assay systems in microscale fluidic devices," covers multiplexed methods and chips used in Caliper's LabChip(R) high throughput screening applications that support parallel experimentation at extremely high throughput. These systems and chips are currently being commercialized in the company's Technology Access Program (TAP) and Value-Added Screening Collaborations (VASC).
U.S. patent 6,150,119, entitled "Optimized high-throughput analytical system," covers broad algorithms for optimizing design of channels in chips to facilitate continuous, serial processing experiments.
U.S. patents 6,149,787, entitled "External material accessing systems and methods" and 6,148,508, entitled "Method of making a capillary for electrokinetic transport of materials," cover methods that pertain to Caliper sipper chip technology. The first patent covers variations on sipper chip formats and sampling methods and the second patent covers improved fabrication methods.
U.S. patent 6,149,870, entitled "Apparatus for in situ concentration and/or dilution of materials in microfluidic systems," covers the performance of dilution in microfluidic chips. This patent covers methods for achieving high accuracy, serial dilutions up to many orders of magnitude in microfluidic systems, and is a critical aspect of performing chemical and biochemical experiments, including for example, dose response reactions.
In addition to these five patents, in the last six months the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued 11 additional patents to Caliper. Important among these patents are the following:
U.S. patent 6,071,478 covers Caliper's proprietary three-tier system architecture (instrument/adaptor module/chip) for use in pressure/vacuum controlled systems. This patent is of particular importance to the performance of cell-based assays on the Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer, which Caliper expects to introduce in 2001.
U.S. patents 6,086,825 and 6,090,251 cover devices and methods for performing high throughput experimentation in planar chip formats, without the use of capillary sippers for sample access, through the use of alternate reservoir configurations that allow rapid serial dispensing of multiple samples into individual wells.
U.S. patent 6,074,725 covers fabrication methods that facilitate rapid chip design and manufacture.
Caliper is pursuing an aggressive intellectual property strategy to establish a comprehensive proprietary estate encompassing all aspects of microfluidic technology. Caliper's patent portfolio derives from its own innovation as well as inventions licensed exclusively to Caliper from other microfluidic technology leaders. Today, Caliper has 69 issued U.S. patents, with 164 patent applications filed and another 17 patents allowed. These patents broadly cover microfluidic technology, instrumentation, applications, manufacturing technology and control and analysis software.
Caliper Technologies Corp. is a leader in lab-on-a-chip technology. Caliper designs, manufactures, and commercializes LabChip(R) devices and systems that enable experiments that ordinarily require laboratories full of equipment and people to be conducted on a chip small enough to fit in the palm of a child's hand. The chip contains a network of microscopic channels through which fluids and chemicals are moved in order to perform the experiment. The LabChip(R) systems are designed to streamline and accelerate laboratory experimentation and have potential applicability in a broad range of industries including pharmaceuticals, agriculture, chemicals and diagnostics. Caliper has established multiple strategic and commercial alliances and has built a leading intellectual property estate in microfluidic technology.
Note: This news release contains a forward-looking statement regarding Caliper's expectations regarding the timing of the release of its cell-based assays for use on the Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer. The actual timing of the release is subject to risks and uncertainties, including the fact that these assays are still in development, and unanticipated technical problems may arise that could delay the date of delivery of these products, or may prevent Caliper from completing these products. In addition, the foregoing discussion of newly issued microfluidics patents involves risks and uncertainty, including the risks: that Caliper may need to initiate lawsuits to protect or enforce its patents, which would be expensive and, if Caliper loses, may cause it to lose some or all of its intellectual property rights, which would reduce its ability to compete in the market. These and other risks related to Caliper are detailed in Caliper's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC dated March 24, 2000.
LabChip is a registered trademark of Caliper Technologies Corp.
SOURCE Caliper Technologies Corp.
CO: Caliper Technologies Corp.
ST: California
IN: MTC CPR
SU:
11/22/2000 05:00 EST prnewswire.com |
