By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter

Start Licensing, a U.S. firm that deals with cloning licenses, that is linked with American cloning firm BioArts, is taking steps to sue a Korean firm involved in the commercial production of dog clones, sources said Monday.

Responding to an inquiry by The Korea Times, the firm in question, RNL Bio, said that it was not notified of any legal action as of Monday (KST) but its officials hinted that it could counter-sue.

Start Licensing, a Texas-based firm claiming to be holding the patent rights to clone dogs, cats and endangered species, developed at the Roslin Institute for the Dolly project, filed a formal cease and desist letter to RNL Bio, June 30, through a Korean law firm, the sources said.

RNL, a Seoul-based biotech firm, said in February that it had received an order from a U.S. woman to produce a genetic copy of her late pitbull terrier, named Booger ― three clones are expected to be born sometime later this month via a surrogate mother.

However, this has brought it into direct conflict with BioArts, a California-based company that claims it has obtained exclusive licenses for the cloning of mammals using somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) technology from Start Licensing. BioArts is currently running an online auction to clone five dogs, with the bidding starting at $100,000.

A ``cease and desist'' letter is a request regarded as the start of legal action, which seeks to halt an activity of an individual or an organization in business disputes. The content described in the letter could be used as evidence in court for damage claims or requests for a provisional disposition, lawyers said.

``It could be said that Start Licensing has taken the first step in its legal action against RNL Bio,'' said a patent lawyer.

In an interview with The Korea Times, Lou Hawthorne, chief executive of BioArts, said that the claims that the RNL could potentially block BioArts from cloning dogs using its patent from Seoul National University (SNU) would be a case of ``the tail wagging the dog.''

``The claims in the Roslin patents relate to a method of cloning all mammals, not just sheep. Although the technique was first successful with sheep, the claims are not limited to sheep,'' he said.

Ra Jeong-chan, president of RNL, said that his company hasn't been officially contacted by the Korean law firm representing Start Licensing. However, he did say that his company could sue BioArts and its Korean subcontractors, Sooam BioTech Research Center, led by disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk, as early as this month.

``It would be hard for Start Licensing to push forward their legal case here, as the patent rights involving the technology used in the cloning of Dolly the sheep are registered under the Roslin Institute in Korea, not the U.S. company, according to the Korean Intellectual Property Office,'' said Ra.

RNL has been claiming that it holds the exclusive license for dog cloning, granted by SNU that holds the patent rights for the technology developed in the cloning of the dog ``Snuppy,'' which happens to be a verified Hwang achievement. Fired by SNU after his work on cloned human embryos and stem cells were found fraudulent, Hwang has been leading his own research team at Sooam, which has been providing the technology for BioArts' projects.

thkim@koreatimes.co.kr