A Medical Device Daily

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," said CEO Ron Wheet. "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,"

Rev Color and Rev 3-D software will be compatible with current picture archiving and communications systems (PACS). Radiologists and physicians are used to viewing black-and-white MRI images on a PACS, but Rev Med's software tools can be easily added to current PACS to show such images in color and 3-D using automatic segmentation, according to the company.

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.