Amgen Inc. on Thursday said the U.S. Patent and TrademarkOffice has decided in favor of the Thousand Oaks, Calif.,company's patents on erythropoietin in three instances inwhich Genetics Institute Inc. had also filed patents.

The three interferences included the process of producinghuman recombinant EPO, the EPO product itself and thepreviously issued patent that had been awarded to Amgen's Dr.Fu-Kuen Lin, which in-cluded the DNA, vectors and host cellsrequired to produce EPO.

Amgen now expects to receive patents for the EPO process andproduct. Its stock (NASDAQ:AMGN) closed up 88 cents at $59.88on Thursday. GI (NASDAQ:GENI) closed up $1 at $38.25.

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