Gevo Seeks Declaratory Judgment to Prove Invalidity of Butamax Patent

(NASDAQ: GEVO) filed a lawsuit for declaratory judgment against Butamax(TM) Advanced Biofuels, LLC (Butamax), E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co. (NYSE: DD), BP p.l.c. (NYSE: BP), BP Corporation North America Inc. and BP Biofuels North America LLC, seeking a judicial determination that a recently issued Butamax U.S. Patent No. 8,241,878 ('878 Patent) is invalid and that Gevo does not infringe on it."We believe Butamax's patent is invalid and will be filing a Request for Reexamination with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office," said Brett Lund, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Gevo. "We can make this claim for many reasons, including the fact that we already have an issued patent covering this technology and we invented it before Butamax filed its patent application. Butamax's '878 Patent covers only two Dihydroxy-Acid Dehydratase (DHAD) enzymes, unlike Gevo's patented technology in U.S Patent No. 8,232,089 ('089 Patent) that covers dozens of DHADs, including the two DHADs claimed in Butamax's '878 Patent."