Gevo, Inc. a renewable chemicals and advanced biofuels company, received two patents from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on important technologies that enable the low-cost, high-yield production of biobased isobutanol. The company also filed a lawsuit against Butamax and its affiliate DuPont. The lawsuit charges that Butamax and Dupont infringe Gevo's two newly-issued patents.
Gevo was awarded US Patent No. 8,017,375, “Yeast Organism Producing Isobutanol at a High Yield” (PDC Patent), and US Patent No. 8,017,376, “Methods of Increasing Dihydroxy Acid Dehydratase Activity to Improve Production of Fuels, Chemicals, and Amino Acids” (AFT Patent).
Gevo's PDC Patent focuses on converting an ethanol producing yeast into an isobutanol producing one. This significant discovery virtually eliminates ethanol production in yeast and enables Gevo's yeast to survive and thrive by producing isobutanol at high yields. The AFT Patent covers one of the key enzymatic steps in Gevo's unique intracellular pathway for producing isobutanol in yeast.
“In layman's terms, these inventions, and others addressed in Gevo's pending patent applications, help to turn an industrial yeast strain into a highly efficient cell factory to produce isobutanol,” said Brett Lund, EVP and General Counsel of Gevo. “We used synthetic biology to reprogram the yeast to make isobutanol instead of ethanol. In other words, we changed the yeast so that it makes what we want instead of what it wants, and we made it so it does it really well.”
In combination, the inventions described in these two patents are part of Gevo's unique technology to produce isobutanol. The patents grant to Gevo the right to exclude others from using this technology in the US for their own purposes without Gevo's consent.
“Our lawsuit is based on Butamax's own publications describing their use of the technology that Gevo invented first and for which we have received patents,” said Lund. “We expect the breadth and strength of our patent estate to grow considerably over the coming months as our patent applications convert into granted patents.”