A Medical Device Daily
Stem cell company Neuralstem (Rockville, Maryland) launched a lawsuit Wednesday against StemCells (Palo Alto, California), alleging that it "intentionally withheld crucial information" highly material to the patentability of StemCells' new patent and that it was done with the intent to deceive the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in order to get the patent allowed.
The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland Southern Division. Neuralstem wants the court to make StemCells' patent unenforceable.
StemCells reported last month that the USPTO had issued it patent No. 7,361,505 with claims covering human neural stem cells derived from any tissue source, including embryonic, fetal, juvenile or adult tissue (Medical Device Daily, April 24, 2008).
At that time, StemCells' president/CEO, Martin Mc Glynn, said the company was "confident that any third party wishing to commercialize neural stem cells as potential therapeutics or to use them as drug-screening tools will have to seek a license from us, irrespective of how they derive the cells. We have already granted licenses to several companies and are currently considering licensing others."
Richard Carr, president of Neuralstem, said that the company does not believe it is infringing on the patent and has not yet been "directly accused" by StemCells of patent infringement. However, he said, "threatening statements" StemCells made in April "leave the misleading impression that we would require a license from them as a result of the issuance of this patent. Nothing could be further from the truth.
"In addition to finding that the patent is unenforceable against us, or anyone else for that matter, as a result of their actions, we are asking that the court also declare that we are not infringing the patent and that the patent is also invalid," Carr said. "We are confident that their intentional withholding of highly material information and their intent to deceive the Patent Office, will result in this patent being unenforceable."
Neuralstem's technology is designed to enable the ability to produce neural stem cells of the human brain and spinal cord in commercial quantities, and the ability to control the differentiation of these cells into mature, physiologically relevant human neurons and glia.
The company is targeting central nervous system diseases, including ischemic paraplegia, traumatic spinal cord injury and ALS.
StemCells also is developing cell-based therapeutics to treat diseases of the central nervous system and liver.