The Dolcera Blog

For the fourth time in less than three years, federal authorities have rejected a key patent worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Genentech, the South San Francisco biotechnology giant.

But it’s unlikely the decision by the USPTO regarding the so-called Cabilly patent, which deals with a technique for making antibodies and cells, will have an immediate effect on the company.

Genentech spokeswoman Caroline Pecquet said the firm’s executives haven’t seen the latest decision and haven’t determined how they will respond. But Pecquet noted that when the agency previously rejected the patent, it agreed to reconsider the matter at the company’s request.

The corporation also has the option of filing a formal appeal with the patent office and, if that fails, with the federal courts. Until all appeals are exhausted, the patent remains in effect and Genentech can continue receiving royalty payments from other firms that use the technology.

The patent – which the company obtained in 2001 and expires in 2018 – earned the company $133 million last year, according to an annual report Genentech released Tuesday.

The legitimacy of the Cabilly patent has been challenged by MedImmune of Maryland. That company pays Genentech royalties for using the technology in a drug it sells to treat respiratory diseases.

MedImmune, which has sought since 2005 to have the patent invalidated, also sued Genentech in 2003 over the dispute. That trial is scheduled to begin in June.

After Genentech announced the patent decision, its stock price fell 46 cents to close at $77.50 Tuesday.

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Tetra Tech, Inc. announced today that it has been awarded three wind energy projects totaling approximately $150 million by PacifiCorp, one of the leading utilities in the western United States. Work on the three projects will begin immediately and is expected to be complete in December 2008. Tetra Tech will provide engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) services for the Seven Mile Hill, Glenrock and Rolling Hills wind farm projects in Wyoming.

Each of the three wind projects will include 66 General Electric turbines and will be capable of generating 99 megawatts of power.

The Seven Mile Hill wind project is located in Carbon County, Wyoming, between the towns of Hanna and Medicine Bow. The Glenrock and Rolling Hills projects are located in Converse County, Wyoming, on a site that includes the reclaimed Dave Johnston Coal Mine, where surface mining operations took place for more than 40 years. Final reclamation of the mine was completed in November 2005, returning the land to its pre-mining appearance.

“Many clients are seeking full-service solutions for their wind power development projects,” said Dan Batrack, Tetra Tech’s CEO. “Tetra Tech has been involved in 70 wind projects in 35 states and is continuing to expand its capability and experience in this growing market.”

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IPNews Flash:This free service allows you to search for patent families complete with their legal status based on INPADOC data provided by the European Patent Office.

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The terms filing date and priority date are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same. The filing date is the date when a patent application is first filed at a patent office. The priority date, sometimes called the “effective filing date”, is the date used to establish the novelty and/or obviousness of a particular invention relative to other art.

The priority date may be earlier than the actual filing date of an application. If an application claims priority to an earlier parent application, then its priority date may be the same as the parent.
There are a number of situations where a patent application may claim priority to an earlier application. These include:

* Continuation applications (including continuations, divisionals, and CIPs). A patent application may claim priority to an earlier filed parent application. When this occurs, the priority date of the new application is usually the same as the priority date of the parent application.

* Domestic applications based on foreign or international filings. If a patent application is first filed in a foreign country, or as an international (PCT) application, and then filed domestically (usually within a year the foreign or international filing), then the application that is filed domestically may claim the filing date of the application in the foreign country as its priority date.

* Patent filings based on US provisional patent applications. In the US, an applicant may file a provisional patent application, and then file a full-length application within one year. In this case, the priority date for the full-length application is the date of the provisional application filing.

In many cases, a patent application claims priority to a series of applications. For example, a continuation application may claim priority to a parent utility application, which claims priority to a US provisional application. The new application may then claim priority to the first filed application in the series, which in this case, is the provisional application.

If a patent application is an original, non-provisional patent application, not a continuation application, and not previously filed in another country, its filing date is usually the same as its priority date.

Source..

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Different sections on Patent Searching..Click here

1. Introduction

2. General U.S. Patent Information

3. Why Conduct a US Patent Search?

4. Patent Search Databases

5. Patent Search Procedure

7. Learning From the Patents Found

8. Examine Products

9. Search the Marketplace

10. Search Inventions and Patents for Sale

11. Search Emerging Technologies

12. Miscellaneous Patent Search Links

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Patent Search….

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Google Patent Search searches the USPTO database and can search full text of the older patents (that cannot be done from the USPTO site)

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China has seen a surge in foreign-related intellectual property rights (IPR) court cases since joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001.Domestic courts nationwide tried and concluded 668 such cases in first instance last year, compared with only 43 in 2001.

Local courts concluded 1,634 such cases in first instance during the period, an annual growth of 58 percent.

Cao Jianming, Supreme People’s Court vice president, attributed the surge to the country’s opening-up process and development of foreign trade.

IPR protection has risen in importance on China’s judiciary agenda. Since 2001, the supreme court has ordered the establishment of special courts for IPR cases nationwide and lowered the threshold to prosecute people manufacturing or selling counterfeit products.

China has staged consistent fights against piracy, destroying pirated books and DVDs in public, trading counterfeit DVDs for movie tickets and raiding factories churning out fakes.

Chinese President Hu Jintao promised the implementation of a new “national strategy” on IPR protection at the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) last October.

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Motorola Inc. and Hitachi Ltd. were among 34 companies accused of violating a retired Columbia University professor’s patent for light-emitting diodes and laser diodes.Gertrude Neumark Rothschild filed the complaint today with the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington. She is seeking to block U.S. imports of products that she says infringe the patent, including video players using Sony’s Blu-ray format, Motorola’s Razr mobile phones and Hitachi camcorders.

Companies named in the complaint include Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., LG Electronics Inc. and Samsung Group, makers of Blu-ray DVD players, as well as Toshiba Corp., which said yesterday it would abandon the HD DVD format that challenged Sony in the market for high-definition video.

Nokia Oyj, the world’s biggest mobile-phone maker, and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, the joint venture between Tokyo-based Sony and Ericsson AB of Sweden, also were named in the complaint.

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A FIRM HAS SUED AMD, Nvidia, Intel, Sun, Raza Microelectronics and Real Networks, alleging they breach a patent it owns.The patent in question is 6,629,163 with the inspiring name of “Methods and System for Demultiplexing a First Sequence of Packet Components to Identify Specific Components Wherein Subsequent Components are Processed without Re-identifying Components.”

Implicit Networks alleges Intel uses this patent in its Viiv technology, AMD and Raza use it in ATI and Alechemy products, Nvidia uses it in its Stant Media software, Sun uses it in its Java Media Framework, while Real uses it in its Helix DNA client.

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