Loring "at it again" in attack on Thomson stem cell patents

Californiastemcellreport, while still not covering monkey cloning, does have a recent post on Jeanne Loring, who gave a declaration against the Thomson / WARF patents.

The report quotes Loring from a recent piece on "Nature Reports: Stem Cells:"

"We were surprised when WARF responded (to the challenge) with a press release saying, correctly, that I and the other scientists also have patents. This isn't relevant to the validity of the WARF patents, and seems to be an attempt to undermine our credibility. Our patents, like (Jamie) Thomson's, are assigned to companies or to our universities, and we have little control over how they are enforced. We are not challenging Thomson; we're challenging the patent owner, WARF."

Loring is correct about the credibility issue, although she does not explore it closely enough. What Loring did certainly was not "prior art" to Thomson; her relevant work was filed after Thomson filed. What is is highly material to credibility is the fact that her claim was BROADER then the Thomson claim which she is currently attacking. It's hard to take Loring seriously when she says Thomson's claim is too broad when she claimed MORE broadly.

Loring splits hairs on "challenging Thomson." It is correct that the legal party at this time would be WARF, the assignee of the patents. However, it is the claims of the patent she is attacking, for which claims the inventor is Thomson.

See previous IPBiz posts:

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/07/critics-of-warf-patents-have-conflicts.html

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/11/major-newspapers-report-on-oregon-stem.html [which points out the recent work on monekey cloning seriously undermines the premise of Loring's attack on Thomson, that work on mice is predictive of work on humans]

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/06/what-californiastemcellreport-isnt.html

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/07/more-on-esi-retreat-from-embryonic-stem.html

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/08/loring-playing-role-of-chanute-in-stem.html

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/09/trounson-named-prez-of-cirm-what-you.html