Biotechnology company submits re-examiniation request for Benitec.

2004 DEC 1 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Nucleonics, Inc., announced that it has filed with the Commissioner of Patents in Australia a request for re-examination of Benitec and Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization's (CSIRO) Australian Innovation patent No. 2001100608, entitled "Control of Gene Expression."

The request submits relevant prior art documents not previously considered by the Australian Patent Office showing that the patent claims are invalid because they lack novelty and/or did not involve an innovative step at the time the patent application was filed. Nucleonics also believes that the claims are ambiguous and that the application fails to provide adequate description or sufficient working examples to support the scope of the claimed subject matter.

This challenge follows Nucleonics' previously announced filing with The Commissioner of Patents in Australia of a Request for Re-Examination of Benitec and CSIRO's Australian patent No. 743316, entitled "Control of Gene Expression" as well as the earlier filing with the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office of a Request for Re-Examination of Benitec and CSIRO's U.S. Patent No. 6,573,099 entitled "Genetic Constructs For Delaying Or Repressing The Expression Of A Target Gene."

"The filing of this request for re-examination in Australia is a further demonstration of our commitment to use all available legal avenues to expose the inherent weaknesses in Benitec's patent portfolio," said Robert Towarnicki, Nucleonics' chief executive officer. "We will not permit Benitec to use its invalid patent claims to interfere with and attempt to prevent those working to advance eiRNA technology from developing needed therapeutics for chronic viral and other disease indications around the world."

Post-transcriptional gene silencing, also known as RNA interference or RNAi, is a ...