Replies to post #2990 on Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (MNTA)

[RockRat]

I am not a patent lawyer (or any other kind). Maybe you can interest north40000, who is a retired patent attorney (actually, DD might understand this stuff well enough for our purposes, and he's more likely to help). That said, this patent you reference is still under examination in in the EU.

https://register.epo.org/espacenet/application;jsessionid=A2034117ACC7EE3357CB08EA13F63064.RegisterPlus_prod_1?number=EP03744629&tab=main

They are moving a bit faster in the US. A patent by the same group, with the same title, but with obviously different and probably amended claims -- yet still pertaining to structural signatures -- is the subject of the litigation: the 886 patent.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,575,886.PN.&OS=PN/7,575,886&RS=PN/7,575,886

This incorporates other provisional patent applications by reference, but I can't seem to find the damn things. It is possible those claims are the same as the ones in the app you found in WIPO. But I don't know. Often provisional patents have no claims.

http://inventors.about.com/od/provisionalpatent/a/Provisional_Pat.htm

The claims in that app you talk of do indeed seem broad. I wonder if they'd hold up to a challenge. But I'm not sure those claims are even at issue here in the US. The ones in 886 are. They are narrower, and they are the ones to which I refer.

Somebody feel free to school me here if I am off base. As I said, I am not a patent attorney . . .

Regards, RockRat

(Rocky is a different poster who also has an interest in Momenta; he's a lot more useful than I: he gets the scrip data and shares)