Saturday, August 27, 2011

Gevo's inter partes re-exam request as to US 7,851,188

Gevo's request for inter partes re-examination of Butamax's US patent 7,851,188 is 96 pages long and gives background on twelve (12) substantial new questions of patentability ["SNQ"]. All twelve SNQs relate to obviousness under 35 USC 103.

The principal reference in SNQ 1 is Yocum, published US application 2004/0146996. Another reference is a Ph.D. thesis by one Smit from 2004 [ "Formation of Amino Acid Derived Cheese Flavour Compounds" ] {There is some odd spelling on page 20 of the re-exam request relating to the Smit reference: "catolaging"?]. SNQ 1 involves the application of Yocum, Smit, and Hansen (Hansen is a chapter from a 2003 book), none of which was of record during the prosecution of the '188 patent.

Another reference is Nakamura's US 6,013,494 on producing 1,3 propanediol by recombinant microorganisms. Another reference is a screen capture from the ExPASy Proteomics Server. And, Gevo did cite the 3rd edition of Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry.

***UPDATE. Oct. 14, 2011

Gevo's first inter partes request is 95/001,718 filed on 08-18-2011. Gevo made another request on a different Butamax patent, 95/001,735 filed on 09-01-2011, relating to US 7993889 .

The first SNQ in re-exam '735 is for anticipation of claims 1, 3, 11, and 16-19 based on Larroy, Chemico-Biological Interactions (2003), which gives details of the route from pyruvate to isobutanol. Another reference is Bekkaoui, Current Genetics (1993).
Another reference is Yocum's US 20040146996.

One notes that if one fails in an inter partes re-exam, there are estoppel provisions which prevent use of the re-exam arguments in a later litigation in district court.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home