Neptune Challenges Aker's Australian Patents

LAVAL, QuebecThe patent battle continues for Neptune Technologies and Bioressources  Inc. and Aker BioMarine ASA. The latest disputes covers Aker's new patents in Australia that Neptune  said should be declared invalid.

Neptune filed for the revocation of all of Aker's Australian patents before Australia's Federal Court because Neptune said the patent claims lack novelty and are not patentable inventions.

Specifically, Neptune is seeking a declaration that all the claims in Akers standard patent (No. 2008231570) and the innovation patents (Nos. 2012101332, 2012101333, 2012101334 and 2012101335) are invalid. Neptune said the krill oil composition and methods of extraction in the patents are nothing new, pointing out it its NKO® krill oil product was on the market years before Aker filed for these patents in Australia.

The method and the compositions claimed in the Aker Patents are invalid and were obtained by false suggestion and misrepresentation, as stated in the documents filed by Neptune before the Federal Court of Australia" declared Neptunes chief global strategy officer, Tina Sampalis, Ph.D. We are confident that the Federal Court of Australia will find that the Aker Patents are invalid."

Edvard Brække, Aker's attorney, said both the method and the compositions described in the patents are novel as of the priority date in early 2007. He added that Aker analyzed commercially available Neptune products before filing the patents. "The results of the analyses of such products already on the market defined the lower limits of our claims, and even if current Neptune products might be within the claimed ranges, it is the situation on the priority date that is relevant when determining the novelty of our invention."

Aker received the innovation patents in November 2012 after Intellectual Property (IP) Australia confirmed Aker's standard patent claims in September 2012; Neptune requested the standard patent claims be re-examined.

Neptune and Aker have also had patent disputes in the United States, with the most recent clash occurring in October 2012 when Neptune received a new U.S. patent (No. 8,278,351), and used it as a basis to file a second patent infringement lawsuit in against Aker BioMarine and other krill suppliers.