Nanogen Inc., of San Diego, was granted U.S. Patent No. 6,891,154, titled "Amino Acid Sequence Pattern Matching," and U.S. Patent No. 6,893,822, titled "Enzymatic modification of a nucleic acid-synthetic binding unit conjugate." Those patents relate to Nanogen's biomarker discovery technology and methods of isolating nucleic acids on a microarray.

Neurocrine Biosciences Inc., of San Diego, received U.S. Patent No. 6,903,106, covering a polymorphic form of its compound, indiplon, for the treatment of insomnia. This patent will provide protection for indiplon until 2023.

Odyssey Thera Inc., of San Ramon, Calif., received U.S. Patent Nos. 6,897,017 and 6,872,871, covering various methods, compositions and uses of protein-fragment complementation assays.

OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Melville, N.Y., received U.S. Patent No. 6,900,221, directed to a crystalline polymorph of Tarceva (erlotinib), methods of treating various cancers and processes for production of the crystalline polymorph. The claims will extend patent protection of Tarceva until 2020.