ALTIUS/TEEPEE, here's a repost!!NO Teepee, there patent is NOT suspect in any way, and now that they have the NewZealand patent, it's a DONE DEAL, there will be NO legal challenges, IT WOULD HAVE ALEADY HAPPENED!! It's happening folks!!!
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I've dealt personally with the Canadian, US, and a few European patent offices. The dates were between 1996 - 2000, dealing with novel downhole oilfield equipment. I'll leave out the Patent #'s to maintain anonymity (sp?).
However, to elaborate a bit further on why I think this is big info:
--There is a treaty called the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, since 1883. As of January 1993, 108 countries were members of the Paris Convention, including NewZealand, Canada, US, etc. One important part of the treaty is that the right of priority ("priority date") is recognized for subsequent filing in the member countries within a certain period, (12 months for patents). Thus, if you make your application in a member country, other countries will honor that first filing date. Thus, an inventor wishing protection in multiple countries need not file all applications at the same time, but has 12 months from the first application to decide on subsequent filings.
--There is also the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva. Under the PCT you can apply for Patents in up to 89 countries with a single application in Canada. I'm assuming that this is how Isotechnica applied. Local patent officies in each country can review individually, but when one Country grants a patent, it is usually accepted by subsequent Country's, since the first country will have already conducted a full review.
Other personal comments on Patent's from experience:
--I believe that too much emphasis is generally placed on Patents. Actually, they are most usefull between the time of filing and the time of issuance. During this period, all information can still be kept secret, but you have established prior art. One the patent is issued, all information is public. Some companies file a patent and will wait until the last possible minute before submitting the info to the Patent Office (If I remember, you have up to two years). Much more value should be placed on the fact that ISA is years ahead of anyone else being able to hit the market with this type of molecule, patent or no patent.
--If there were ANY infringement by ISA on another patent, the New Zealand patent wouldn't have been issued. With the on-line capabilities today, it is very unlikely that a patent exists that ISA infringed on. This is why I said in the previous post that the US and Canada Patents were "shoe-ins". So everyone should realize that it doesn't matter if the US patent doesn't come for 1 month or 11 months, it's pretty much a done deal.
Sorry for the serious and long winded post. Hope it helps. I'm still laughing about the "raised middle finger TA", the fact that Altius is still short 10,000 shares, and that TheNewGuru is pshycic.
LargeInvestor, I still want to know how you knew about the release 3 hours before it happened!!!