That's just great informative article. Thanks for sharing this.
Field Service Management Software

Have to wonder if thermo knows what they just stepped in?

Go Trollbusters! Stick it to those arrogant Life and Roche companies and their crap patents.

Existing licensees don't have to pay untill Roche stretches out the appeals process. One can simply terminate and stop paying. Cepheid did that. Or pay the royalty amounts into escrow that only gets paid out if the patent survives without claims being amended and creating intervening rights, an unlikely event.

I wonder what Trollbusters has next up?

Not for most licensees who have to pay until all appeals are exhausted.

This makes Cepheid very happy along with the rest of us while deeply cutting both Lifetech and Roche. This decision eliminates 100s of millions in royalties and exposes Lifetech and Roche to lawsuits.

Looks like the both Roche and LIFE are left holding the short straw. the rexamination office posted a FINAL rejection on multiple fronts of the Gelfand 375 qPCR kit and mix patents.

Thank you TrollBusters. The world is FREE to practice the obvious except those under contracts with LIFE and ROCHE. Your only way out is to sue, maybe in a class action.

So don't be intimidated by the size of the list and the hand waving. Hire a patent attorney or patent agent to go through the agreement, determine which patents have expired (can be complicated) and can be ignored, then prepare an analysis of the claims that are left vs your products and explain it to you. If you do it well before launch chances are you can probably design around. This is what agents and attorneys are for. Use them.

Well exactly - which makes it disappointing that the DOJ dropped its false marking investigation here. These turds present you with a bundle of patent numbers, upwards of 90% are expired these days, and say here you go, you must need at least one of these. The fee is 10 -20% of revenue whether you need all of them or even a single claim from one. Some companies do make the effort to go through them claim by claim and try to make the case (as did Caliper) that they don't actually use any of the claims presently in force, and good on them. Still the fallacy that Roche and ABI are selling is that the mass of all these claims is what justifies the 20% profiteering even though the vast majority are no longer valid. They wouldn't dare ask for more that 1-2%, subject to stacking abatement, for the value of what they have that is actually novel and still protected. But the DOJ chickened out and are allowing thse guys to swing the full bundle.

How can you require that a license fee be paid on an expired patent? There are companies that pay them due to poor diligence, but since there is nothing to enforce with an expired patent the best the owner of the dead paper can do is send a bill and hope that the licensee is a little slow in the head.
Of course if a company thinks they can make money long term by licensing IP instead of investing in real R&D the dead patent owner is probably right. Those royalties are usually based on the sale price but they come straight out of the profit.

Well now I haven't studied this but Double Patenting only invalidates one of the two patents at issue I think. The first person to have the claims still has them. This normally only happens within a a single asignee. The patent provenance here is unusual in that Roche and ABI were both originally working with the same guys at Cetus (who eventually moving to Roche and/or ABI) and both companies were motivated to make similar extension of the technology in their assigned field of use.

In some cases one or both companies may actually have untimately owned one or more of the original inventors, but both companies had rights to continue some of these original specifications. I find the whole history of PCR patenting to be offensive and have no desire for a headache so I don't paticulary care to read how this morass was ajudicated, but assuming one of the companies still has rights to these ridiculous claims you can be sure that they will both continue to assert thme. You have now seen both companies getting very chummy and agreeing to cross license stuff (e.g. ABI finally getting legitimate diagnostic rights). You can bet they will be colluding to require licensing royalties to patents long expired in addition to all the patents that should never have been granted in the first place yet which are still in force, no matter who the owner is.

From what I read on Pair and the protest that was filed to the reissue of virtual clone of the 375 patent in lieu of a full rejection of all claims of the 375 - Roche is more trouble than it knows.

Intent to decieve the USPTO by failing to disclose properly served documents months before their recent plea to merge is a fatal blow. One has to question how desperate Roche and Life reallly are.

What a disgrace for both ROCHE and LIFE...Like a jealous boyfriend who stalks the the ex months after she cuts him off.

Wise up pcr world. You sissies. Get a spine and stand up to the bully who is not wise or smart enough to make money on his own.

Dude, you are very naive. Better go back and review what double patenting is and why this patent is invalid. Otherwise, you should stay off these boards with your ignorant blogs. Get some help man!

Too much jumping the gun in this thread. An office action is an office action. It doesn't mean any or all claims are invalid. In all likelihood some claims will remain intact, while others will be narrowed. Don't presume too much from the issuance of a non-final office action. Knowingly infringe this at your own risk. Or not. Whatever. Let the whining resume.

Dude - the reexam was VALID - the 375 patent was ruled invalid.

But I agree, what a scum lawfirm out of D.C. along with ROCHE "unclean hands"

Looks like Roche filed to merge the 375 reexam which was ruled invalid and their reissue which was a poor mans attempt to continue the 375 as is. However they got caught hiding a protest filed against the reissue which was served on them in December of last year.

What scum and unethical business practices.

More trickery, Roche filed for a reissue of the 375 patent. Won't work because the prior art and double patenting still cause this patent to be invalid. the end is here for Roche and Life.

Roche will have to drop this patent in the end and with it, goes the whole licensing program of BOTH Roche and LIFE. They both have been stealing for years and they both know it. There is the crime and reason why some class actin suits may arise soon.

Roche will fight for this patent till the bitter end.

Surprised that the Genome web hasn't picked up this story - Oh wait...a couple more months need to expire before they call it news.

"But go to USPTO.gov, look for the Personal PAIR link, go to the image file wrapper link, search for the patent of interest by number, recent (last few years) actions like this one should be downloadable as pdf files."

Yup, this works. Go to the PAIR link in the original post, enter the captcha words, check "control number" and enter 90/011678. This will take you to the application data page. Click on the tab "Image File Wrapper" - the Non-Final Office Action is listed at the top and can be downloaded as a PDF file. Happy reading.

Cepheid is all over this reexam.

I think deep links into USPTO personal PAIR don't work. You have to answer a squiggly letter challenge to get in.

But go to USPTO.gov, look for the Personal PAIR link, go to the image file wrapper link, search for the patent of interest by number, recent (last few years) actions like this one should be downloadable as pdf files.

does somebody have a link to the examiners review?

Our lawyers are using this currently against LIFE, and they are effective. LIFE claims Roche is repsonsible. Bottom line is - Get out of my face with this toilet paper patent LIFE!

Just like Cepheid, more companies will stop paying royalties for the kit and machine patents. This is the end of the road for Roche and Life.

Just read the examiners review...no way LIFE and Roche can get away with this monopoly anymore. Finally, maybe the rats will get the poison they deserve.

Qiagen sells a very capable detergent free MM/TAq, so there is no need for the detergent patents piracy.

Be careful, both Roche and Life bundle patents. Ask them to remove the 375 patent from the bundle. It will be ruled invalid. All they are left with in the detergent patent that will probably be the next one to fall.

I wonder which Life or Roche patents will be hit next? I wonder if Troll Busters will now go after the bogus Enzo patent? But wait, Life or Roche will not pay Troll Busters to bust the Enzo patent, or will they.

Looks like only a month plus for LIFE/ROCHE to respond - or final office action is FTO of all mixes and kits. What a crap patent.

This is HUGE, I can tell LIFE to piss off and make kits for my enviromental assays. Thanks Trollbusters!