OBJ Limited - US Patent Office Allows Dermaportation Patent

Last Tuesday OBJ made an announcement regarding the development of a new pain patch. This Tuesday they released further news in regard to the company’s Dermaportation technology. The company advises “that they have received notification from its patent attorney that the patent application, protecting the Company’s powered electromagnetic fields drug delivery technology for the USA, has proceeded to allowance.”

The announcement continues with “The Company has been notified that subject to the payment of applicable fees, that the United States Patent Office would move to grant the full patent within 3 months.”

And finally the most important paragraph “Dermaportation is currently being developed for a number of applications and the allowance of a US patent over this key drug delivery technology is expected to assist with partnering discussions.”

Now on first thoughts I think many investors and traders will be too quick to discount the significance of this announcement. It is a major milestone towards allowing the company to secure partner agreements and the potential commercialisation of a product. Put simply no partner would proceed with a licencing agreement or the production of a product if the technology it was based on was not secured by a patent. It would be too easy for the product to be replicated and the company lose the marketing advantage it sought to gain.

I do anticipate that this announcement could be a prelude to more exciting developments for the company within the next six months, however I do not expect this announcement in itself to lead to significant gains. The announcement came out at just past 1 o’clock (EST) and I have been reviewing the market depth and price movements. It has clearly bounced off our low of 1.6c today, hit an intraday high of 2.0c and is currently bouncing between 1.8c and 1.9c. My thoughts in regard to this is that some holders are selling into the announcement and taking this as an opportunity to exit given the stock has been weak relative to the overall market for a couple of weeks. I anticipate that we should be able to close in the green (1.8 cents or higher) but I do not see substantial gains coming from this announcement alone.

With two announcements, two Tuesdays in a row, perhaps more good news will follow next week.

Link to Announcement.