Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM)

[Slashnuts]

GERS Receives Contingency Offer To Restart Litigation Against Ethanol Industry...
This includes ADM's unlicensed use of GERS' oil extraction technology.

CleanTech subsequently received an opinion of counsel that its remaining seven of twelve corn oil extraction patents are clearly valid and enforceable, along with a contingency-based offer to restart the infringement litigation from scratch. We are evaluating our rights and remedies in connection with all applicable matters, and we are unable to characterize or evaluate the probability of any outcome at this time

Further, in connection with ongoing patent filings, the USPTO allowed CleanTech’s new corn oil extraction patents after considering the very information that the District Court found to have been withheld, and upon which the bulk of the District Court’s rulings were based. All of the information alleged to have been “knowingly withheld” from the USPTO in connection with the patents in suit was provided to and considered by the USPTO prior to issuance of several additional patents that are not covered by the District Court’s prior rulings (the “New Patents”). The USPTO subsequently disagreed that deception of any kind occurred when, on February 21, 2020, it issued another patent to us after reviewing the very evidence that was allegedly “withheld,” along with everything the defendants ever submitted and claimed, as well as the District Court’s 2014 and 2016 rulings – all in light of the facts that were never presented to a jury. Significantly, the new patent was allowed by the same examiner that the District Court said was deceived. In other words, the same patent examiner that was allegedly deceived looked at the purported evidence and claims of deception, and disagreed that she had ever been deceived. Thus, in issuing that patent, the examiner concluded that the inventive process was not “ready for patenting” in July 2003, that an invalidating “offer for sale” did not occur in July 2003, and that the “ready for patenting” and “offer for sale” information that the District Court determined to have been “deliberately withheld” from the USPTO was immaterial to patentability.