Imperial College stood to be the next big thing. Professor Toumazou and his students had found a way to detect DNA strands with simple transistors, disrupting the cost of all prior DNA test systems…and so DNA Electronics was born. They just needed to show the technology could work commercially and $10M or so to make that happen. Cleverly, our heroes had filed patent applications on the basic idea. The problem was these patent applications were getting rejected and new ideas were stocking up unfiled.

Kurt was brought in at an early stage to remedy this and free up the CTO’s time to get the product working. It would take another five years of rejections, appeals, and negotiations with examiners to get the patents granted. During this time, a further thirty inventions would be filed to secure the company’s technology. As it happens, several other prominent biotech companies would need these patents, as they either developed their own systems or desired to enter this lucrative market. Licenses for these patents would pay for all the ongoing development work and investments / partnerships would push the company’s valuation toward $1BN!

In a surprise twist, the patent examiner that had rejected the patent outright, would eventually nominate us for Invention of the year award with the European Patent Office (which we won).