CogState issued US patent

CogState has announced that it has been issued a patent from the Unites States Patent & Trade Mark Office (US patent no. 7,163,513) for the key technology platform used in its computer-based tests of brain function. The patent term adjustment is 229 days.

As announced in July 2006, this patent broadly protects CogState’s psychological testing method which randomises the nature and timing of the visual stimuli presented to a subject as well as the apparatus used in such tests. The patent also protects the company's unique approach to cross cultural and non language specific based testing which uses a cultural visual stimuli.

This is the first US patent for CogState, which also holds a patent in Australia (patent number 2001275604), issued in April 2005.

CogState Ltd (ASX: CGS) specialises in the development and commercialisation of rapid, computerised diagnostic tests of cognition (brain function). The tests are sold to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, nutraceutical and functional food companies to quantify the effect of drugs or other interventions on human subjects participating in clinical trials.

Since sales into the clinical trials market began in 2004, CogState has secured agreements with organisations including Pfizer, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Centres for Disease Control (USA), ALZA Corporation (a member of the Johnson and Johnson group) and Organon USA. CogState is currently expanding its existing activities in the US clinical trial markets.