What can this be called? An unusual breakthrough! You may term this as you wish, but the reality is that these incidents happen to be very rare in the realm of the investigative research studies in the international arena. It has been found in this regard, that there have been two companies who are involved with an infringement lawsuit that is totally concerned with a stem cell-related patent. However, both of them have agreed to a stay order of the proceedings in anticipation of the re-examination of the patents in question by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. It is to be noted, that the two companies involved in a predicament are the Stem Cells, Inc. and Rockville. It was in the year 2006 in the month of August that a lawsuit was filed by Stem Cells, Inc. (STEM) against Rockville, Md.-based Neuralstem or the NRLS. The motion also has been found in staying Neuralstem's counter claims against Stem Cells.

As part of a major development in the recent days, the U.S. Patent Office has provided its ruling in favor of Neuralstem while giving order for the re-examinations of all the Stem Cells patents in the very suit. The main reason of the re-examination has been that there has been the acknowledgement of "serious new questions of patentability" problems along with each claim of every patent falling under the purview of re- examination. On the contrary, while Neuralstem has a possession of its own issued patents totally related to its human neural stem cell technology, the patents are not being challenged during the process of the litigation between the companies.

Speaking on this tussle, the Chief Executive Officer of the Neuralstem, Richard Garr said, "We have alleged in the litigation that the patents Stem Cells. Inc. was seeking to assert against us were invalid, and we are certainly not surprised that the Patent Office has now ruled that there are serious new questions of patentability with their claims."

In addition it has also been confirmed on the behalf of the Neuralstem that there happens to be a high expectation over its petition to the PTO regarding the reexamination of the patents in the provided possibility of the issued claims in these patents. The prime reason over this high expectation being since it appears in the present days as the nucleus of the businesses of the Neuralstem that in its due course deals with the effective utilization of the human stem cells.

Again, the Stem Cell is confident that the ruling in the coming days will be in its favor. It is evident from the comment of the CEO of the StemCells, Martin McGlynn. While speaking to this correspondent over the reigning stalemate he said, "We have examined the prior art relied upon by Neuralstem in its petitions and cited by the PTO. We are confident that all of these patents will emerge from this process substantively unchanged."   "We firmly believe that in time Neuralstem will be found by the courts to be infringing our patents," he concluded.