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Enzo named senior party in interference for patent of basic DNA gel sequencing

21 Nov 2006 - Enzo Biochem, Inc. announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has declared a patent interference between an allowed patent application of its subsidiary, Enzo Life Sciences, Inc., and a patent held by California Institute of Technology ("Cal Tech") and licensed exclusively to Applied Biosystems, Inc., a division of Applera Corporation. The technology involves gel sequencing, which is the primary technique for sequencing DNA.
 
An interference is a proceeding brought before the U.S. Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences when a patent and an allowed patent application claim essentially the same invention. The purpose of the proceeding is to determine who is the first inventor and which party owns the patent rights to the invention. Enzo was declared the senior party in this interference because its original application predates by over a year Cal Tech's original application. Cal Tech's U.S. Patent No. 5,821,058 is named in the interference and was issued in 1998. This is a very significant development according to Hunton & Williams, counsel for Enzo, because it will decide who owns the rights to DNA gel sequencing.