LONDON - Proteome Sciences plc announced in a Monday press release that the USPTO has issued a Notice of Allowance for its US patent application in isobaric mass labeling for its tandem mass tags entitled “Mass Labels” Serial No. 10/221,666 (TMT1).

The Notice of Allowance completes the final stage of patent examination and represents the form in which the patent will be granted. This follows grants of the corresponding cases in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and most recently in Europe. The US Patent contains broad claims to sets of isobaric mass tags.

The TMT1 Notice of Allowance in the US is a significant milestone for Proteome Sciences because it confers valuable intellectual property around isobaric mass tagging in another major market and enables the Company to approach entities using isobaric mass labels in the US and to alert them that they can obtain licenses from Proteome Sciences for the manufacture or use of any type of isobaric mass tags in their research programs. These licenses will allow revenue to be generated from any applications in the field of isobaric mass tagging.

Proteome Sciences has also received a Rule 51(4) - Notice of Intention to Grant for its patent application entitled “Mass Labels”, Serial No. 02767650.1 (TMT2) from the European Patent Office that was published on 21st May, 2007. The TMT2 European Patent claims isobaric mass tags with peptide structures and various methods of their use.

“The allowances of the TMT1 patents in the US and Europe have provided Proteome Sciences broad claims across the field of isobaric tandem mass tagging with the ability to now exploit TMT in these substantial markets, both as a product, in its own right and for third party licenses for the manufacture or use of any type of isobaric tandem mass tags,” CEO of Proteome Sciences Christopher Pearce said.

“The market and applications for isobaric mass tagging in quantitative mass spectrometry continues to grow at a rapid pace and we are delighted to have achieved such broad patent coverage in the major economies,” he added.

“The latest patent grants should now enable us to complete commercialization of TMT through out licensing and to generate strong revenue through license income, product sales and royalties,” Pearce concluded.

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