Delaware court dismisses claims in Gevo case against Butamax

Butamax Advanced Biofuels, LLC, the leading biobutanol technology company, announced on May 11, 2013, that the United States District Court for Delaware issued an order dismissing the action that Gevo brought against Butamax in regards to United States Patent No. 8,101,808 (the ‘808 patent).
Gevo stated that the ‘808 patent claims cover Gevo’s Integrated Fermentation Technology (GIFT) for the removal of isobutanol, the technology used at Gevo’s Luverne, Minn., U.S.A., plant prior to its shut down last year.
Butamax CEO, Paul Beckwith said, “From the outset, Butamax denied infringement of the ‘808 patent, and challenged its validity. The claims have now been found unpatentable by the USPTO and the case is dismissed by the court order. We are gratified with the result.”
Gevo announced the ‘808 patent in January 2012 with the headline “Newly issued patent is central innovation in Gevo’s retrofit strategy for isobutanol production,” and then immediately sued Butamax for patent infringement.
Under reexamination, all of the original claims of the ‘808 patent were rejected, and all modified and added claims were found unpatentable by the USPTO. Faced with this outcome, Gevo consented to the dismissal of its claims against Butamax.
Butamax is now moving ahead with the first phase of a plant retrofit this year. Butamax is also developing new technologies, and has been granted seven patents in 2013 alone, including an entirely new method for recovery of bioisobutanol from fermentation (U.S. Patent No. 8,409,834). “We are very excited about our momentum and the commissioning of phase one of our first commercial project this year,” Beckwith explained.
(May 11, 2013)