Patents and Trade Secrets

Lineage owns, controls or has licensed directly, or through our subsidiaries, one of the largest patent estates in cell therapy, consisting of hundreds of applications and issued patents worldwide including more than 190 issued or pending U.S. patents or patent applications. This also includes the over 135 patents and applications licensed from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (“WARF”).

Lineage relies primarily on patents and contractual obligations with employees and third parties to protect our proprietary rights. The Company has sought, and intends to continue to seek, appropriate patent protection for important and strategic components of our proprietary technologies by filing patent applications in the U.S. and certain foreign countries. The Company also uses license agreements both to access technologies developed by other companies and universities and to convey certain intellectual property rights to others.

Lineage and our subsidiary, Cell Cure Neurosciences, Ltd. (“Cell Cure”), have issued patents that will provide protection to OpRegen. The issued patents have expiry dates ranging from 2025 to 2033. Lineage and our subsidiary, Cell Cure also have pending applications that if issued, will provide protection to OpRegen and will have expiry dates ranging from December 2025 to December 2038.

Cell Cure was a party to two pending opposition proceedings in the European Patent Office (EPO) involving EP Patent Numbers 2147094 (issued 08-Oct-2014) and 2554661 (issued 19-Nov-2014), both entitled, “Stem Cell-Derived Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cells”. The Oral Proceedings took place on March 16, 2017 and March 17, 2017, respectively. Both patents were upheld by the EPO. The decisions were both appealed and the detailed grounds for appeal were due on September 9, 2017 and September 11, 2017, respectively, however, both appeals were withdrawn prior to those dates and the patents will be issued as amended in the opposition proceedings.

The patent rights relevant to neural cells, such as oligodendrocyte progenitor cells, include various patent families that are directed to the differentiation of pluripotent stem cells (including hES cells) into various neural cell types, as well as various culture and purification methods. These patent rights also include rights licensed from the Regents of the University of California.

There are issued patents in the United States, Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan, China, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Singapore and Israel. Additionally, there are five new pending patent families owned by us directed to improved methods of producing oligodendrocyte progenitor cells, oligodendrocyte progenitor cell compositions and methods of treatment of spinal cord injury and stroke using oligodendrocyte progenitor cells. The stroke family is jointly owned with the Regents of the University of California; the other four new pending families are solely owned by Lineage.

The expiration dates of the patents in-licensed from the Regents of the University of California will be within 2021 to 2030. The potential expiry dates of the four new patent families with applications pending will be within 2036 to 2038.

The patent rights relevant to dendritic cells include various patent families that are directed to the differentiation of pluripotent stem cells (including hES cells) into hematopoietic progenitor cells and immature and mature dendritic cells. In addition, these patent rights include a patent family with claims directed to immunogenic compositions comprising antigen-presenting dendritic cells and methods of eliciting an anti-telomerase immune response in a subject by administering to the subject such compositions.

There are issued patents in the United States, Australia, Europe, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Israel and Singapore. The expiration dates of the patents range from 2019 to 2029.

In addition, Lineage has issued patents in the Unites States and various other jurisdictions for producing cardiomyocytes, pancreatic islet cells, hepatocytes, chondrocytes, and osteoblasts. The expiration dates of these patents range from 2020 to 2032.

Lineage has patent protection for Renevia with expiry dates ranging from May 2023 to August 2027, and pending applications that if issued, will provide protection to Renevia with expiry dates ranging from December 2024 to June 2038.