GreenShift has announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") has issued a notice of allowance for patent application number 11/241,231, titled "Method of Processing Ethanol Byproducts and Related Subsystems" (the "'231 Patent Application").

The new patent is broadly directed to corn oil extraction processes that include evaporating water from thin stillage to form a thin stillage concentrate; mechanically processing the thin stillage concentrate to separate oil from the thin stillage concentrate; and recovering the separated oil.

Increased Strength

The new notice of allowance is the third allowance issued by the USPTO on this particular application. To further strengthen its legal position, GreenShift requested the USPTO in each case to withdraw the earlier allowances and review all of the materials submitted by all of the defendants in GreenShift's current patent infringement litigation, including ICM, Flottwegg, and Westfalia in support of their invalidity arguments. The USPTO issued the new notice of allowance for the '231 Patent Application in spite of everything raised by each and every defendant, including ICM.

GreenShift believes that the allowance of the new patent by the USPTO is further substantial confirmation of the validity of GreenShift's patents, and significantly increases the strength of GreenShift's legal position in asserting its claims of infringement of its corn oil extraction patents.

Pioneering Patents

GreenShift's issued and allowed patents cover recovery of corn oil from the stillage co-product of dry mill ethanol production. This process has, by far, become the most cost-effective and most profitable advancement made available to dry mill producers in the history of the ethanol industry.

"We have led the way," said David Winsness, GreenShift's Chief Technology Officer. "We invented, developed and commercialized this technology. We educated the industry and created the market for back-end corn oil extraction. Our patents are pioneering patents that dominate the field, dramatically altering the landscape of the ethanol industry by enabling the industry to capture more than $2 billion per year in additional income without consuming any additional corn."

Powerful Competitive Advantage for Licensed Producers

GreenShift's patented extraction technologies are proven to deliver increased profit, reduced energy costs, a smaller carbon footprint, and lower risks to licensed ethanol producers. Ethanol producers that license GreenShift's technologies also share in the competitive protections afforded us by the U.S. patent laws. These benefits collectively provide licensed ethanol producers with a powerful competitive advantage when compared to ethanol producers that do not license GreenShift's technologies.

GreenShift will continue to protect the competitive advantage of its licensees. Winsness added: "we are aware of no practical method to recover corn oil from stillage that does not also rely on our patented corn oil extraction processes. We believe this to be true regardless of the type of equipment or chemicals used; or the upstream ethanol production conditions or temperatures; or the downstream processes used to strip free fatty acids or to filter recovered oil prior to refining. We welcome and expect innovation, however, we also expect any and all use of our technologies to be lawful."

GreenShift intends to take all necessary steps to bring infringement of its patents to an end, including filing additional lawsuits at the appropriate time. GreenShift further plans to seek additional relief for instances of willful infringement.

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