A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Revolutions Medical (Mount Pleasant, South Carolina) has taken steps to secure European protection for the most important claims associated with its MRI patents. This step follows the previous U.S. patent application filings in June 2007.

"The U.S. and European countries make up nearly 70% of the MRI market. Securing these two markets is key for protecting our patent rights on future products that we expect to roll out in the next 12 months for our proprietary Color and 3-D MRI software," said Ron Wheet, Revolutions' CEO.

Rev Color and Rev 3-D software will be compatible with current Picture Archival Computer Systems (PACS). Radiologists and physicians are used to viewing the black and white MRI images on a PACS, so Rev Med's proprietary software tools can be easily added to current PACS to show the black and white images in color and 3-D using automatic segmentation, according to the company.

In other patent news, Seegene (Rockville, Maryland) reported that it has been awarded international patent protection for a technology able to accelerate the detection of highly personal variations in genetic sequences. These genetic variations can identify an individual's risks for a broad range of disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease and coronary artery diseases, or genetic mutations known to cause various cancers.

The patent (WO/2008/143367) issued by the World Intellectual Property Organization covers a novel method for ApoE haplotyping using multiplex PCR. Seegene's Dual Priming Oligonucleotide (DPO technology is being applied to haplotyping the investigation of the genetic background and phenotype structures of complex diseases.

Jong-Yoon Chun, founder/CEO of Seegene, said, "This novel approach to haplotyping using the Seegene multiplex platform allows biomedical researchers to cross a barrier that to this point has frustrated many – the exploration of observed patterns of genetic sequences that help us understand how the diverse traits reveal themselves as true risks for individuals."