StemCells gets patent on Enriched central nervous system stem cell and progenitor cell populations

A June 6 press release noted: StemCells, Inc. today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued Patent Number 7,381,561 claiming the use of additional monoclonal antibodies for the prospective isolation of rare cells from human neural tissue, such as the Company’s HuCNS-SC® product candidate (purified human neural stem cells). The discovery and use of monoclonal antibodies to prospectively isolate rare cells, combined with its expertise in cell biology, has been a critical component of the Company’s successes to date.

The first claim of the '561 patent states: A method of producing a population from neural tissue enriched for human central nervous system stem cells (CNS-SC) which can initiate neurospheres (NS-IC), comprising: a) contacting neural or neural derived cells with a monoclonal antibody that binds to CD49f; and b) selecting said neural or neural-derived cells that bind to the monoclonal antibody; wherein the selected cells are enriched for human CNS-SC.


The attorney/agent/firm for the '561 patent is listed as: Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, PC Elrifi; Ivor R. Stock; Christina K. Attorneys who write and file patent applications must be registered before the US Patent and Trademark Office. It's sad that California's CIRM picked an attorney NOT registered before the USPTO to give advice on intellectual property matters. This selection continues a "drunken sailor" walk of cluelessness by CIRM in intellectual property matters. California taxpayers are the ultimate victims of this poor strategy shown by CIRM.

StemCells is involved in patent litigations. See for example:


StemCells still going after Neuralstem