Jim Lane
It’s like the selling of Ginsu knives, the legal dispute between
these two companies. No matter how much you hear….but wait,
there’s more!
This week, we heard from Butamax that the District Court of
Delaware has issued an order scheduling two further rounds of
patent infringement actions pending between Butamax and Gevo (GEVO)
for resolution.
The next phase of litigation, involving three Butamax patents
asserted against Gevo, will begin in September 2014 with the
discovery process and trial is scheduled for August 2015.
Thereafter the remaining cases, involving three other Butamax
patents asserted against Gevo, will recommence later in 2015 with
trial scheduled for as early as April 2016.
The news is not all that new — these two rounds of litigation
have been long discussed in the Digest and have been on the books
— if not on the exact calendar — for a year or more.
Some of the scheduling has to do with the status of litigation
that was originally expected to go froward this summer — the first
phase. These suits were postponed based on their similarity to an
upcoming Supreme Court case.
Bottom line, the Supremes will hear this fall, rule next spring
(we expect) — and then phase two and phase three litigation is
scheduled for summer 2015 and summer 2016.
According to Butamax, “Butamax continues to assert a total of
eight patents against Gevo. Meanwhile, all of the cases involving
patents asserted by Gevo against Butamax have either been ruled in
Butamax’s favor or dismissed.”
Worth reminding readers that we have reported that almost all of
the cases were dismissed on application by Gevo, which is waiting
to sue until Butamax is in production and therefore creating
actual harm.
Gevo’s final case against Butamax was dismissed by the Court in
August 2014, following an Action Closing Prosecution from the
Patent Office rejecting all claims.
Butamax also requested Patent Office re-examination or inter
partes review of a total of 15 Gevo patents, of which 14 are
ongoing and 1 has concluded in Butamax’s favor. Gevo requested
re-examination of four Butamax patents, all of which are ongoing.
Jim Lane is editor and publisher of Biofuels Digest where this
article
was originally published.
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