competitiion, page-3

Hey swimswim, you're up and at 'em early this morning! LOL!

Just on the patents, in the US they run for 20 years from the date of grant. The life of a patent can also be extended under certain circumstances. The initial Unifill patents go out to 2024, which is one reason the patent cliff revenue protection busines is so attractive to big pharma - it's got a very long life.

Unilife owns a significant patent estate which they are constantly adding to and developing, for example the patent pending Unifill Select, (application lodged Nov. 09, and the Tuberculin safety syringe), so lifecycles are something of a moving target.

Unilife has also been granted a Freedom to Operate by the USPTO. In essence these means that an exhaustive search has been conducted of all the databases for patents issued and pending, for similar or potentially similar devices, and Unilife's IP was found not to infringe any of them, hence a Freedom to Operate in the market without threat of patent infringment litigation.

While this only applies to the US, given the global nature of the safety syringe markets, it is probabaly safe to assume that the scope of it applies to other territories.

My understanding is that Unilife is very pro-active in protecting its patent estate, thus the claims that they own the only known retractable syringe in the world that incorporates the various safety features within the barrel of the syringe, and which make the Unitract technology unique, are not lightly made. The beauty of it all is that all the patents issue from the original Unitract art, thus Unilife's IP becomes an extended family of patents which makes it even more difficult for any potential competitor to circumvent.

Which of course, at some stage, must inevitably make Unilife an even more attractive target!