StemCells patent litigation

The AP reported: Biotechnology company StemCells Inc. said Thursday, June 28, 2007, it has agreed to a stay in its patent-dispute lawsuit against Neuralstem Inc. while the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office re-examines the patents in question.

AP also noted: "We are confident that all of these patents will emerge from this process substantively unchanged," Martin McGlynn, president and chief executive officer of StemCells, said in a statement. "We firmly believe that in time Neuralstem will be found by the courts to be infringing our patents."

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IPBiz notes that the precipitating event apparently was a decision by the USPTO granting a re-exam request of claims of the StemCells patents. News-medical net reported:

The U.S. Patent Office recently ruled in favor of Neuralstem and ordered re-examinations of all the StemCells Inc. patents in a suit finding that there were "serious new questions of patentability" problems with each claim of every patent under re- examination.

IPBiz reminds people that the Eolas patent, questioned by many, survived re-exam without changes to the claims. Patents of Thomson / WARF are currently in re-exam.