Dyax Corp. a developer of novel biotherapeutics for unmet medical needs, announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences has granted the company's suggestion to declare an interference between Dyax's US Patent Application No. 12/625,337 and Adimab LLC's US Patent No. 7,700,302 (the ‘302 patent), both of which cover methods of displaying a library of antibodies on the surface of yeast cells.

A patent interference is a proceeding conducted by the USPTO to determine priority when two or more parties claim patent rights to the same technology. The US patent system awards patents to the first party to invent a particular technology. The USPTO presumes that the parties made their inventions in the order of the filing dates for their patent applications. The party with the earliest filing date is referred to as the senior party, while the party with the later filing date is referred to as the junior party.

In this matter, the USPTO has determined that Dyax is the senior party and Adimab is the junior party, as the subject matter claimed in the ‘302 patent was disclosed in a Dyax patent application filed 16 months before the corresponding Adimab application. As the junior party, Adimab bears the burden of proof and will have to clearly demonstrate that it invented the technology at issue before Dyax.

“We believe that Adimab's ‘302 patent should not have issued and that the technology central to Adimab's antibody display technology is, in fact, a Dyax invention,” stated Ivana Magovcevic-Liebisch, PhD, JD, executive vice president Corporate Development and General Counsel. “Dyax technology has long been the industry “gold standard” for the discovery and optimization of therapeutic antibodies. Our investment in innovation is what sustains this leadership position. It is central to Dyax and to the life science industry that innovation, and the investment that sustains it, are protected.”

In preparation for the interference, the USPTO has already determined that the claims of Dyax's patent application are allowable and that Adimab's ‘302 patent is not entitled to the priority date of the three earliest applications Adimab listed on the face of the ‘302 patent (all of which were filed after Dyax's earliest application).

Dyax is a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing novel biotherapeutics for unmet medical needs.