Patent Law

The following is an excerpt from a June 10, 2009 Cellectis press release available at Business Wire:

On March 13, 2008, the genome engineering company Cellectis SA (Alternext: ALCLS) initiated a patent infringement lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in North Carolina against Precision Biosciences Inc., for infringing two of its patents directed to the use of molecules known as megaucleases in recombinant biotechnology. These two patents-in-suit, U.S. Patent Nos. 7,309,605 and 6,610,545, are exclusively licensed from Institut Pasteur, a world-renowned, not-for-profit research institution, and are part of a portfolio of patents and applications in the endonuclease field that Cellectis owns or to which it has exclusive rights. Currently, Cellectis holds a portfolio of 42 granted patents, with more than 130 applications for additional patents pending.

Well after Cellectis filed its suit, Precision asked the U.S. Patent Office to reexamine two related, but separate, patents also licensed exclusively to Cellectis by Institut Pasteur, U.S. Patent Nos. 7,214,536 and 6,833,252. The Patent Office recently agreed to reexamine these two related patents. ?This is a normal and common administrative procedure. The process is likely to be long, involving multiple legal steps. A final decision ultimately will be given by the U.S. Patent Office and any conclusions drawn before this decision are premature,? said Dr. André Choulika, CEO of Cellectis.

The Cellectis patents to be reexamined by the U.S. Patent Office are not the two patents-in-suit that Cellectis has accused Precision of infringing in the U.S. District Court. And, in fact, Precision has not sought to reexamine the patents it has been accused of infringing.

Read the full press release here.