You're right, I found out during the day from Ed that this is not a final granting of the patent, it is just the publishing for public perusal, which is an interim stage in every patent. This stage allows for possible challenges.
Ed did however say that they feel supremely confident that there are NO competing patents, they are WAY ahead of any other technology for sterilization. The data in the patent describes much more about that.
Although my conversation was not about this week's news, I got a clear sense that we can expect good, solid news sometime this week.