Menu

About Us

Cambia is an independent non-profit institute creating new technologies, tools and paradigms to promote change and enable innovation.

Read More

Patent applications filed and patent owned by Aresa Biodetection APS

Company overview

Aresa is a Danish Biotechnology company that conducts R&D in areas of biosensors and biopharma.  They have developed three transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants that function as bioindicators:
1. RedDetect – transgenic A. thaliana plant that detects landmines by change in plant color.
2. RedDetect UXO – transgenic A. thaliana plant that detects unexploded ordnance (UXO) by change in plant color.
3. RedScreen – transgenic A. thaliana plant that can be engineered to detect unfavorable stress conditions by change in plant color.

Technology overview

Aresa has filed a series of patent applications (one of which has been granted in New Zealand, see below) that are generally drawn towards a reporter system that includes a gene involved in the development of a monitorable trait.  The scope of the independent claim in the applications is broad considering the fact that neither the gene or the stimulus in this reporter system is particularly specified, however these applications do not have enforceable rights until they are granted in the respective jurisdictions.

Details of patent documents

Patent or Publication No. Title, Independent Claims and Summary Assignee and licensing information
NZ 536874

  • Earliest priority – 29 May 2002
  • Filed – 30 May 2003
  • Granted – 24 Mar 2005
  • Expected expiry – 30 May 2023
 Title – Reporter system for plants

Claim 1
A reporter system giving rise to a directly monitorable phenotypic trait in a plant in the presence of solely an outer stimulus, said reporter system comprising

  • a gene which is not part of the natural plant genome encoding a product which is involved in the development of said directly monitorable phenotypic trait in response to the presence of said outer stimulus.

The claims are generally drawn towards:

  • A reporter system comprising a gene encoding a product that is involved in the development of a phenotypic trait that is directly monitorable in response to the presence of an outer stimulus (claim 1)

Definitions extracted from the specification are provided in WO 2003/100068.

Comments:

NZ 536874 is the only granted patent from this patent family that is reported on INPADOC.

The difference between claim 1 in NZ 536874 and WO 2003/100068 (see below) are:

  1. the absence of term ‘capable’ in describing the function of the reporter system in the preamble
  2. addition of term ‘solely’ in describing the condition of the reporter system to express a phenotypic trait
 Aresa Biodetection APS

Symbion Science Park
Fruebjergvej 3
2100 København Ø

Ph +45-70227747
Fax +45-70227757
US 2005/289662

  • Earliest priority – 29 May 2002
  • Filed – 30 May 2003
  • Published – 29 Dec 2005
  • Application pending
  • Expected expiry – not applicable
 Title – Reporter system for plants

Claim 1
A reporter system giving rise to a directly monitorable phenotypic trait in a plant in the presence of solely an outer stimulus, said reporter system comprising

  • a gene which is not part of the natural plant genome encoding a product which is involved in the development of said directly monitorable phenotypic trait in response to the presence of said outer stimulus.

The claims are generally drawn towards:

  • A reporter system comprising a gene encoding a product that is involved in the development of a phenotypic trait that is directly monitorable in response to the presence of an outer stimulus (claim 1)

Definitions extracted from the specification are provided in WO 2003/100068.

Comments:

Since this is a published application and not a granted patent, currently there are no enforceable rights.

The difference between claim 1 in US 2005/289662 and WO 2003/100068 (see below) are the same as those for NZ 536874 (see above).
WO 2003/100068

  • Earliest priority – 29 May 2002
  • Filed – 30 May 2003
  • Published – 4 Dec 2003
  • Expected expiry – not applicable
 Title – Reporter system for plants

Claim 1
A reporter system capable of giving rise to a directly monitorable phenotypic trait in a plant in the presence of an outer stimulus, said reporter system comprising

  • a gene encoding a product which is involved in the development of said directly monitorable phenotypic trait in response to the presence of said outer stimulus.

The claims are generally drawn towards:

  • A reporter system comprising a gene encoding a product that is involved in the development of a phenotypic trait that is directly monitorable in response to the presence of an outer stimulus (claim 1)

Definitions extracted from the description are:

  • Reporter system – any system which is able to transform a stimulus into another feature which can be monitored or measured.
  • Directly monitorable phenotypic trait – any phenotype of physical or chemical nature which may be monitored without the need for sampling.
  • Outer stimulus – any stimulus of external origin of chemical or physical nature which affects a plant.

Comments:

Since this is a published application and not a granted patent, currently there are no enforceable rights.

The body of claim 1 (which is the content in the dot point) does not contain the term ‘plant’, therefore it can be interpreted as the ‘gene encoding a product’ being able to be used in any organism including plants.

The inventors have enabled the technology described in this application by providing methods in the examples to produce transgenic A. thaliana plants that detect/bind to heavy metals or nitro-containing compounds with constructs containing the following sensor/binding gene and reporter gene combinations:

Heavy metal detection

Sensor gene Reporter gene
GSH1 promoter (glutamate-cysteine ligase chloroplast isoform)
GSH2 promoter (glutathione synthase)
PCS1 promoter (gene bank accession AF461180)
PCS2 promoter (gene bank accession AY044049)
GST30 promoter (glutathione S-transferase)
CAD1 promoter (phytochelatin synthase)		 CHS (chalcone synthase)
LUC (luciferase)
GFP (green fluorescent protein)

Heavy metal binding

Promoter gene Heavy metal binding gene
35S GSH1
GSH2
CAD1
Nramp1 (gene bank accession AF165125)
Nramp2 (gene bank accession AF141240)
PCS1
PCS2

Nitro-containing compound detection

Sensor gene Reporter gene
Nr1 promoter (nitrate reductase 1)
Nr2 promoter (nitrate reductase 2)
Nii promoter (nitrite reductase)
Ntr-2-1 promoter (high-affinity nitrate transporter ACH2)		 CHS
LUC
GFP

Nitro-containing compound metabolism

Promoter gene Nitro-compound metabolism gene
35S Nr1
Nr2
Nii
Ntr-2-1
XenA (xenobiotic reductase A)
XenB (xenobiotic reductase B)
Onr (pentaerythriol tetranitrate reductase)
Remarks
  1. National phase entry of WO 2003/100068 in Australia (AU 2003/240150), Europe (EP 1511847), China (CN 1656228) and Japan (JP 2005/534292) are pending.

Search strategy

Search details
Date of search 12/04/2006
Database searched Patent Lens
Type of search Simple
Collections searched AU-B, US-A, US-B, EP-B, WO
Search terms Aresa in applicant
Results 1
Comments