SEOUL, South Korea, Jan. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- RNL Bio Co., Ltd. (Representative Director Jung Chan Ra, www.rnl.co.kr), a Korean company that has pioneered the commercialization of dog-cloning services, and Start Licensing, Inc. of the United States have agreed to dismiss their litigation and have concluded a license agreement as of January 11, 2010. Start Licensing, which started its history in 2005 as the joint venture between Geron Corporation and Exeter Life Sciences, was merged with ViaGen, Inc., the leading global livestock cloning and genomics company, in 2008. Start Licensing manages and licenses a broad portfolio of intellectual property rights related to animal reproductive technologies, including the technology developed and owned by Roslin Institute (Edinburgh) for the cloning of Dolly the sheep (collectively, “Dolly Patents”).
According to Mr. Baek-Kyu Lee of Kim & Chang, a law firm representing Start Licensing, and Mr. Young-Mo Kwon of Lee & Ko, a law firm representing RNL Bio, the settlement has changed the relationship between Start Licensing and RNL Bio from that of competitors to global business partners.
Mr. Jung Chan Ra, President of RNL Bio, stated that with the settlement with Start Licensing, the patent dispute, which had been the sole remaining obstacle in the company’s efforts to expand dog cloning services to the global market has been completely resolved, and as the world’s sole dog-cloning services provider, RNL Bio will expand its services overseas, starting with countries that have the greatest demands such as the United States, Japan, China and Russia. Mr. Ra also stated that RNL Bio plans to expand its business to cloning of detection dogs, theme park for cloned dogs, and development of improved breeds via transgenic cloning technologies.
About Start Licensing
About RNL Bio
CONTACT: RNL Bio, Press Center, (02) 874-0686, ext. 108
Web site: http://www.rnl.co.kr/
