Gevo Wins In Court – Butamax Denied Preliminary Injunction; Gevo Free To Sell To Anyone, Anywhere

Gevo, Inc. (NASDAQ: GEVO), a leading renewable chemicals and next-generation biofuels company, announced today that the U.S. District Court of Delaware denied the Motion for Preliminary Injunction sought by Butamax™ Advanced Biofuels, LLC (Butamax) against Gevo. This decision replaces the previous court order, and means that Gevo is once again free to sell in any market, to any customer, in any region.

“We are pleased that the first judicial decision in this dispute landed decisively in favor of Gevo,” said Brett Lund, EVP and General Counsel for Gevo. “For the last year, we have publicly stated that we believe that Patent No. 7,993,889 (‘889 Patent) is invalid and that we do not infringe. This ruling provides judicial support for both positions.”

In the Honorable Judge Sue L. Robinson’s judicial opinion, she stated, “that plaintiff (Butamax) does not hold a valid patent, nor would the defendant (Gevo) infringe if it did.”

On Sept. 22, 2011, Butamax petitioned the Court for a preliminary injunction against Gevo and accused Gevo of infringing the ‘889 Patent. Gevo opposed Butamax’s motion, explaining that the asserted claims of the ‘889 Patent are neither valid nor infringed. The Court has now ruled in favor of Gevo and denied Butamax’s request for a preliminary injunction.

“Gevo has consistently maintained that it does not infringe Butamax’s ‘889, ‘188 (Patent No. 7,851,188) and ‘328 (Patent No. 8,178,328) patents, because the Gevo-created NKR enzyme used in our engineered yeast strains uses NADH, and not NADPH, as an electron donor,” said Lund. “NADH enables Gevo’s yeast strains to produce isobutanol at much greater efficiencies than strains using NADPH.”

In rejecting Butamax’s allegations of infringement, the Court held that the KARI enzymes of Butamax’s ‘889 Patent are “explicitly defined as being exclusively NADPH-dependent.” “This is important, because the same definitions are provided within Butamax’s ‘188 and ‘328 patents that have also been asserted against Gevo,” said Lund.

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