Exhibit 10.2
Confidential Treatment has been
requested for portions of this exhibit. The copy filed herewith
omits the information subject to the confidentiality request.
Omissions are designated as “***”. A complete version
of this exhibit has been filed separately with the Securities and
Exchange Commission.
LICENSE
AGREEMENT
between
BAYER
CROPSCIENCE GmbH
and
SENESCO TECHNOLOGIES,
INC.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Page
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1.
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INTRODUCTION OF THE PARTIES
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1
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2.
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PREAMBLE
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1
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3.
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DEFINITIONS
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1
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4.
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LICENSE GRANT
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3
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5.
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IMPROVEMENT
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3
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6.
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SUBLICENSE GRANT
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4
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7.
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REPORTS
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4
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8.
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TRANSFER OF TANGIBLES AND INFORMATION
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4
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9.
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MAINTENANCE AND ENFORCEMENT OF
PATENTS
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4
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10.
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BEST EFFORTS
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6
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11.
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CONSIDERATION
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6
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12.
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LIMITED WARRANTY. LIMITATION OF
LIABILITY
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7
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13.
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CONFIDENTIALITY -PUBLICATIONS
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8
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13.1
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Confidentiality
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8
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14.
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GENERAL PROVISIONS
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9
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14.1
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Notices
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9
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14.2
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Applicable law and Arbitration
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11
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14.3
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Entireness of Covenants
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11
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14.4
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Amendments
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12
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14.5
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Number of Copies
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12
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14.6
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Descriptive Headings
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12
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14.7
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Assignability
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12
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14.8
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Severability
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12
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14.9
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No Strict Construction
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12
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14.10
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Relationship of Parties
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13
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14.11
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Authorities
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13
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15.
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TERMINATION DURATION
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13
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ANNEX I:
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Licensed Patents
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15
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ANNEX II:
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Licensed Know-How
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16
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LICENSE
AGREEMENT
1.
INTRODUCTION OF THE
PARTIES
This Agreement is made effective the
day of November 2006, (the “Effective
Date”), by and between:
Bayer
CropScience GmbH,
having its registered office
at
Industriepark Hoechst,
K607,
Bruningstrasse 50,
65926 Frankfurt am Main,
Germany
(hereinafter referred to as
“LICENSEE”)
and
Senesco Technologies,
Inc.,
having its
registered office at
303 George
Street, Suite 420
New Brunswick, NJ
08901
(hereinafter referred to as
“SENESCO”)
2.
PREAMBLE
WHEREAS SENESCO has developed
certain technology related to conferring useful traits,
particularly increased seed yield, in plants based on modulating
the gene expression of
eukaryotic translation initiation factor 5A (“eIF-5A”)
and/or deoxyhypusine synthase
(“DHS”);
WHEREAS
LICENSEE desires to obtain an exclusive license under the Patents and Know-How as hereinafter defined for
research and development and for commercialization of certain
Products as hereinafter defined;
NOW THEREFORE, in consideration of
the mutual covenants and agreements set forth below, the Parties
HEREBY AGREE as follows:
3.
DEFINITIONS
In this Agreement the following
words and expressions shall have the following meaning:
3.1
“Advanced Development
Completion”: ***.
3.2
“Agreement”:
this agreement, which includes the
preamble and the ANNEXES.
3.3
“ANNEX”: the documents
marked “ANNEX” and
which form part of this Agreement.
3.4
“Affiliate”: any company
controlled by, or under common
control with, or controlling LICENSEE, “control”
meaning in this context the direct or indirect ownership of
at least fifty per cent (50 %) of the voting stock/shares of a
company, or the power to nominate at least half of the directors,
or the power otherwise to determine the policy of a
company.
3.5
“BRASSICA”: cells,
plants, seeds, part of plants of any species of the genus Brassica
cultivated for oilseed production, including but not limited to Brassica napus, Brassica juncea,
Brassica rapa, Brassica carinata.
3.6
“
Early Development Completion”:
***.
3.7
“Effective Date”: the
date first written above.
3.8
“Gene Component”: a
single locus in the genome of a BRASSICA, comprising a DNA sequence introduced by BAYER which
modulates the native expression of eIF-5A and/or DHS.
3.9
“Gene Component
Confirmation”: ***.
3.10
“Licensed Patents”: all
Patents a) owned by SENESCO and b) licensed-in, with the right to
grant sublicenses, by SENESCO, which relate to the Licensed
Technology, including, without limitation, those Patents listed
in ANNEX I.
3.11
“Licensed
Know-How”: all information, sequences, data, results, knowledge, biological
material, processes, protocols and/or algorithms in the possession of SENESCO
existing on or before the Effective Date which a) is not generally available,
b) that relates to the use of Licensed Technology in Arabidopsis and BRASSICA and c) is
transferred to Licensee identified as “Know How”.
Licensed Know How will be listed
in ANNEX II
and will be subject to the confidentiality obligations as set out
in Article 13.
3.12
“Licensed Technology”:
methods and means to modulate expression of eIF-5A and/or DHS
(including all of their isoforms).
3.13
“License
Income”: the amounts of royalties and/or lump
sum fees effectively received by
BAYER from a third party other than an Affiliate as a remuneration
for the grant of a sublicense, without transfer of biological
materials, under the Licensed Patents and/or the Licensed
Know-How.
3.14
“Parties”: the parties
to this Agreement and
“Party” means one of them.
3.15
“Patent”:
any pending patent application(s) and unexpired patent(s) in any country, and any unexpired patent that
subsequently issues upon any patent application and including all patents that
issue on all divisions,
continuations, continuations-in-part, reissues,
reexaminations,
extensions,
Supplementary Protection
Certificates, which have
not been adjudicated to
be invalid or unenforceable in an unappealable or
2
unappealed decision of the
applicable patent office or
court of competent jurisdiction.
3.16
“Product”: any and all
BRASSICA which contains at least one Gene Component, and which would infringe at least one Valid
Claim of the Licensed Patents in the absence of a license under
this Agreement.
3.17
“Product Launch”: first
commercial sale to a third party of the first Product to be commercialized.
3.18
“Proof
of Phenotype”: *** .
3.19
“Regulatory Clearance”:
*** .
3.20
“Territory”:
worldwide.
3.21
“Valid Claim”: any claim
of an issued and unexpired Patent that has not been finally rejected or declared invalid
by a patent office or court of competent jurisdiction by a
decision which is unappealable or unappealed, or which has not been
revoked by an agency of competent jurisdiction.
4.
LICENSE GRANT
4.1
SENESCO hereby grants to LICENSEE,
solely in BRASSICA, an
exclusive license under the Licensed Patents and the Licensed Know-How to use the
Licensed Technology to make, have made, sell, have sold,
offer for sale, have offered
for sale, import, and use Products in the Territory and, solely for
BRASSICA, to otherwise practice and use Licensed
Technology.
4.2
For the avoidance of doubt, it is
stated expressly that the license granted in Article 4.1 includes
the right for LICENSEE and its Affiliates to subcontract the
implementation of activities covered by the license under
responsibility of
LICENSEE or its Affiliates, provided that the subcontractor shall
implement such activities
for the sole benefit and under the supervision of LICENSEE or its Affiliates.
5.
IMPROVEMENT
5.1
LICENSEE shall be the owner of the
proprietary rights in all results obtained and inventions made by LICENSEE or
any of its AFFILIATES by using the Licensed Technology, Licensed
Know How, Licensed Patents under the terms and during the course of this
Agreement (hereinafter “Licensee Improvement”),
and has the right to
protect these Licensee Improvements by any means LICENSEE deems appropriate including filing patent
applications in relation thereto.
5.2
LICENSEE grants SENESCO a fully paid
up royalty free non-exclusive license on any Licensee Improvement
to the Licensed Technology developed by Licensee and/or its Affiliates through use in whole
or in part of the
Licensed Patents,
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Licensed
Know-How and/or Licensed Technology for use outside BRASSICA
and outside the following crops:
***.
5.3
For purposes
of this articles, a Licensee Improvement which is subject to this Article 5 shall mean an
invention, whether protected by Patents or not, that is only
directed to the improved or
optimized expression of eIF-5A and/or DHS in plants (such as
novel eIF-5A genes and DHS genes, novel chimeric genes involving
eIF-5A and/or DHS genes) and
shall specifically not include an invention made by Licensee that is
applicable to the expression of a broader class of genes. In addition, any
invention made by Licensee to the extent that it is directed or is applied in
relation to BRASSICA shall always be a Licensee
Improvement.
6.
SUBLICENSE GRANT
From the Effective Date, LICENSEE is
entitled to grant written
sublicenses under the Licensed Patents and Licensed Know-How as
licensed under this Agreement, solely in BRASSICA, to
its Affiliates and any third party.
7.
REPORTS
Upon the first
(1 st ) anniversary date
of this Agreement and every year
thereafter LICENSEE shall provide to SENESCO an annual written
report with an overview of
the annual License Income for that respective
year.
8.
TRANSFER OF TANGIBLES AND
INFORMATION
Within eight (8)
days from the Effective Date, SENESCO shall provide at no cost materials and
data pertaining to the Licensed Patents and Licensed Know-How
available to SENESCO for
LICENSEE’s use in development of Products. With
respect to Licensed Patents SENESCO shall promptly inform LICENSEE of any new patent
applications that are filed related to Licensed Technology
and shall provide
status updates on the Licensed
Patents on an annual basis.
9.
MAINTENANCE AND ENFORCEMENT OF
PATENTS
9.1
SENESCO shall have the right to
file, prosecute, maintain and defend, at its own discretion and at
its own cost, any and all Licensed Patents. However, SENESCO shall use its best efforts to have
patents granted with a scope covering the Licensed Technology and its use in BRASSICA
at least in ***, to the
extent that securing patent protection for any part of the
Licensed Patents in these countries is still possible at the
Effective Date. If at any time and for whatever reason SENESCO decides to abandon or
withdraw any of the Licensed Patents pertaining to any of the above mentioned
countries without the remainder of the Licensed Patents in that
country providing such scope, SENESCO shall provide LICENSEE notice of its intent hereof. If
LICENSEE agrees that the Licensed Patents that would remain in such country
after such abandonment or withdrawal would not or could not
sufficiently cover the Licensed Technology and its use in
BRASSICA in such country,
LICENSEE may object to such abandonment or withdrawal in which
case
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SENESCO shall
continue to prosecute, maintain and/or defend such Licensed Patent that it intended to
abandon or withdraw. In case such Licensed Patent is a pending
patent application or an issued patent that is challenged by a
third party, SENESCO may request LICENSEE to assist in the prosecution and/or defense of such
Licensed Patent after which, in the absence of a joint decision by the Parties otherwise,
LICENSEE will use its best efforts to provide such assistance at
its own cost. At least once a year SENESCO will provide to
LICENSEE a status update of the Licensed Patents in the above
mentioned countries with a copy
of all the claims that are pending or issued in all Licensed Patents in such
country.
9.2
As soon as SENESCO has filed, or has
obtained rights on, a new Licensed Patent which contains information or data not
contained in a Licensed Patent which is already published or
previously communicated by SENESCO to LICENSEE, SENESCO shall provide LICENSEE with a copy of
such Licensed Patent (for instance a patent application on a
new invention related to the
Licensed Technology). Such Licensed Patent and all information and
data contained therein shall be subject to the confidentiality
obligations of Article 13.
9.3
SENESCO shall
not have the right to voluntarily terminate any license to a
Patent of the Licensed Patent
which it has licensed from a
third party and which is sublicensed to Licensee pursuant to
this Agreement. However, nothing in this paragraph shall interfere with
SENESCO’s rights to terminate such license
under circumstances where this Agreement is
terminated under the provisions of Article 15.
9.4
Either Party
shall notify the other Party promptly in writing of any act
of infringement of the
Licensed Patents.
With regard to
any acts of infringement of the Licensed Patents involving the
use of
Licensed Technology in BRASSI