will merck pay 300 million us for benitec , page-28

worth revisiting

"A CSIRO Plant Industry research team claims to have discovered RNAi gene-silencing in 1993. Dr Peter Waterhouse's research team demonstrated its application in a landmark experiment in tobacco in 1994, but CSIRO did not lodge its patent with the Australian Patent Office until April, 1998.

Benitec and the Queensland Department of Primary Industries filed a patent a month earlier, in March, 1998.

The Carnegie Institute of Washington and the University of Massachusetts had filed their patent, based on the Mello-Fire discovery, with the US Patent Office nearly three months earlier, in December 1997, and Syngenta also filed its patent application, relating to an RNAi silencing gene vector system, before the CSIRO and Benitec patents.

However, the issue of priority is complicated by the fact that, unlike most patent offices around the world, the US Patent Office recognises priority based on the date of invention – the original experiment - not the date of filing. "

and, presumably after many months of due diligence, Pfizer and Merck have taken out licences.
and the US Federal courts have also found in Benitec's favour.
Sure they're appealing to the US supreme courts and have asked for a reexamination by the USPTO but seriously what are their chances?

A2A 300 million is not a huge price for Pfizer of Merck to pay for groundbreaking technology.