What I have been calling the GERS 5th COES patent is NOW the 5th COES patent issued! Patent number 8168037 issue date 1 May 2012.
This patent is important. Until now It appears the defendants have explored two main paths in engineering around the four other GreeenShift Corn Oil Extraction patents.
First, if they could simply nail down what "substantially free of oil" in their process stream means - say "x%" - they could then try to design to daylight by going to a "x+1%" process. In claim six (6) in the 5th patent we see "separating at least a portion of an oil" from the thin stillage concentrate. Going from the term "substantially free of oil" - which could be pretty limiting - to "separating at least a portion of an oil" is FAR more inclusive. How could one extract ANY corn oil if they develop a system that does not separate at least a portion of the oil? WOW!
The second problem is the Markman ruling on the claim construction of the GERS patents limited the defendants from using heat as a pretreatment for extraction. This controlled heat is key feature of the GERS extraction success. Yet the court decided the patent only covered the heat in the pretreatment - not using the heat in the evaporators. It seems to me that the defendants had a wide opening here. The defendants planned to use the typical long line of 6 to 8 evaporators to concentrate the stillage - but since heat is used in evaporation - also to cause the stillage to rise in heat to the sweet spot. Once it did - whether it was between evaporators 5 and six or six and seven - it would be sent to oil extraction. In this way the defendants could basically use the evaporators both to dewater the stillage - and also as a clumsy but effective (noninfringing?) heating pre-treatment extraction phase. Not anymore. It seems claims 8 and 9 effectively patent the use of the multistage evaporator as part of the extraction process.
One more thing. Look through the 15 or so claims and you will notice something missing. Numbers. The numbers and percentages used to limit and define other patents are not present. This seems a VERY inclusive patent which makes it VERY difficult to engineer around. Will GreenShift acknowledge this significant achievement prior to - or in the 1Q? We will see.
SEE HERE
SkunK
The defendants must realise that this issue and the other allowed below strengthens GreenShift's position.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
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9 comments:
Checkmate!!!
Greenshift corn oil patents Six(6).
ICM ......corn oil patents Zero(0).
POET......corn oil patents Zero(0).
Wow! Blog on Skunk.
Last Friday during a phone call with a GERS official we inquired whether he could provide any information on the reason for the "news black out" or the comments we received during the week from a REX plant manager that "ICM was providing their corn oil extraction technology". The GERS official statement was that he " ... could not say anything about anything". This strengthened my conclusion that 1) the black out is real and 2) it a result of the advice of counsel.
Your question of whether GERS will comment on this new landmark patent, one that will "check mate" ICM is pointed. In this case there is nothing in the award that ICM will know about and therefore no possible reason to keep this from the world of other investors with all its implications for the future of this company. Again, the only reason would be an attorney hold on all external communications. Another test of our thesis is looming. If correct the pivotal question is when will it be lifted? Another way of stating this is when will the PPS be moving consistently moving forward?
Mistatement -- nothing that ICM will not know about --oops!
ISOBUTANOL!
Is this an indicator of the window of technological opportunity closing on GERS or another basis to expand its technology?
http://www.startribune.com/business/147381585.html
Obviously the patent office is aware of ICM's latest "defense". These patents being issued despite ICM's claims speaks volumes.
On that strib article: it is still corn to isobutanol, you'll still have stillage, and you'll still have incentive for recovered corn oil.
Good question though. Any and all corn based fermentations I can think of using whole corn will want some oil recovery afterwards. Would GERS have other corn fermentation processes covered, or just ethanol?
I'm too lazy to read the patents at this time since I am not worried about butanol or ethanol alternatives scaling up at a rate to threaten GERS, so I will just trust my very educated and always correct fellow commenters to provide additional info.
http://www.porknetwork.com/pork-news/latest/New-report-tracks-profitability-of-the-ethanol-industry-147155975.html
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