Start Licensing, Inc. Sues RNL Bio Ltd. for Patent Infringement

Start Licensing, Inc. (Start) announced today that it has filed a lawsuit in South Korea for patent infringement against the Seoul-based company RNL Bio Ltd. (RNL). The suit stems from RNL’s unauthorized canine cloning activities. Start holds an exclusive license to key patents in Korea and elsewhere that cover animal cloning technology, including the technology used to clone dogs. These patents are part of a portfolio of foundational (or core) patents and patent applications that cover somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) cloning technologies first developed at the Roslin Foundation, formerly the Roslin Institute. Start is seeking a permanent injunction against RNL’s infringing activities.

RNL announced on February 12, 2008 that it was launching a dog cloning service and had signed its first client. It was later reported that RNL is offering cloned cancer-sniffing dogs for commercial sale. More recently it has been reported that RNL is advertising dog cloning services at a special reduced price. RNL is not licensed under Start’s patents to engage in any of these commercial activities.

"We feel compelled to file this action in order to protect and preserve our patent rights," said Jonathan Thatcher, President of Start Licensing. "While we remain hopeful of an amicable business resolution to this dispute, there is no question that RNL is infringing Start’s patent rights.”

RNL has stated that it is the exclusive licensee under two Korean patents owned by Seoul National University (SNU) related to dog cloning. Cloning methods performed as described in these patents, as well as those described in an earlier SNU scientific journal article, clearly infringe Start’s patent rights. These methods are the same as taught and claimed in Start’s patents with respect to any non-human mammalian animal, and include: (1) providing a somatic cell from a donor animal; (2) fusing the cell to an enucleated oocyte (an egg cell from which the nucleus has been removed) to create a reconstituted embryo, and activating the embryo; (3) culturing the embryo; and (4) transferring the embryo to a female to carry the embryo to term and give birth to the cloned animal. The patents themselves appear to primarily focus on optimizing conditions for canine embryo activation within the basic steps of SCNT cloning.

"While RNL's dog cloning work may have resulted in optimizing canine embryo activation conditions to some extent, these results plainly do not avoid infringement of Start’s foundational SCNT patents,” said Mr. Thatcher. "To the contrary, RNL’s work further demonstrates that our foundational SCNT technology applies across non-human mammalian species. We fully expect the Korean court will reach the same conclusion.”

About Start Licensing

Start manages and licenses a broad portfolio of intellectual property rights related to animal reproductive technologies, including foundational nuclear transfer cloning technology developed at the Roslin Foundation, formerly the Roslin Institute, for the cloning of Dolly the sheep. Start's licensees are on the cutting edge of research and product development in food production, medical applications and many other fields.