Lets hope that Warburg is right as to who will win this court case, since Infigen is BTRN's partner in this work..
"Friday February 1, 8:10 pm Eastern Time
Press Release
SOURCE: Foley & Lardner
Which Came First, the Cow or the Sheep? The U.S. Patent Office to Decide
SAN DIEGO, Feb. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Which came first, the cow or the sheep, i.e., Gene or Dolly? That is one of the questions that will be considered by the U.S. Patent Office in what is shaping up as the ultimate battle over who owns the patent for cloning mammals from non-embryonic cells. It involves three companies: Geron Corporation, which in 1999 acquired Roslin Bio-Med (the commercial arm of the United Kingdom lab where the sheep Dolly was cloned), Advanced Cell Technology, Inc., of Massachusetts which gained notoriety in 2001 by attempting to clone the first human embryo, and Infigen, Inc. an animal-cloning company in Madison, Wis. that is represented by San Diego attorney Richard Warburg of Foley & Lardner.
The simmering battle heated up yesterday when Geron announced that the U.S. Patent Office had granted its request for interference proceeding against a University of Massachusetts patent for which Advanced Cell holds the exclusive rights. Infigen, which pioneered the cloning of cattle, had already requested an interference proceeding, and the resulting decision by the Patent Office will decide which company, ultimately, was the first to invent and thus holds the right to a patent to mammalian cloning from non-embryonic cells.
According to Warburg, Infigen has a strong case to support its assertion that it will be the eventual winner of the three-way contest.
``In the United States, patent rights are granted to whoever was first to invent a new technology,'' says Warburg. ``Based solely on press releases, it might appear that Roslin Bio-Med was first with Dolly. However, U.S. patent law considers the company that was first to conceive the technology and who was diligent in reducing the invention to practice. In this case, the law sides with Infigen, which began the process of cloning cattle in the United States before Roslin Bio-Med and which has since successfully replicated its invention, with more than 100 cloned animals, including cattle, pigs and sheep. I am confident that the right result will emerge from the patent office.''
Patent lawyers and biotech companies around the world will be closely monitoring the outcome, as it has many implications for patent holders and their licensees.
Foley & Lardner, the nation's 11th largest law firm, has nearly 1,000 attorneys in 16 markets including Chicago; Detroit; Denver; Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, San Diego/Del Mar, and San Francisco, Calif.; Jacksonville, Orlando, Tallahassee, Tampa, and West Palm Beach, Fla.; Madison and Milwaukee, Wis.; Washington, D.C.; and Brussels, Belgium. Its six firmwide departments include Business Law, Health Law, Intellectual Property, Litigation, Regulatory, and Tax and Individual Planning. The firm's Web site can be found at www.foleylardner.com . |
