Nikken is pleased to announce that on January 12, 2012, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) reexamined Imagenetix’s patent, U.S. Patent No. 5,569,676, and rendered its final decision, rejecting Imagenetix’s patent claims. The USPTO found that Imagenetix’s supporting declarations were insufficient and its arguments were misdirected.

Last year, Imagenetix filed a complaint in federal district court alleging that Nikken had infringed this patent, and in response, Nikken contended that Imagenetix’s patent should be invalidated. Besides the USPTO’s ruling, Nikken also has arguments and evidence that it does not infringe Imagenetix’s patent in any event, should the need to make these additional arguments arise. On August 15, 2011, Imagenetix filed a voluntary dismissal with the district court for nine of the ten defendants (including all of the individual distributors and all of the Nikken officers, employees, product developers, and product spokesmen), and then got the district court to stay the entire lawsuit pending this patent reexamination.

From the outset of Imagenetix’s lawsuit, Nikken assured its customers and consultants that the lawsuit was completely without merit, and would be litigated to its just conclusion.