Latest Publications

Share:

The U.S. Trademark Office Says Δ8-THC Is Illegal -- Usually

The decriminalization of cannabis in some states, and its partial decriminalization at the federal level, has created an explosive market for cannabis itself and the myriad chemicals that compose the plant. The 2018 Farm Bill...more

Court Decision Means that Antibody Patenting Is Not Getting Easier

Patenting antibodies has long been challenging. Although most inventions can be patented based on their functionality, assuming the functionality is new and non-obvious, for antibodies and other biomolecules there is a higher...more

Drug Patent Invalid Due to Poor Quality Translation

In IBSA Institut Biochimique v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. a valuable lesson was learned about relying on a translation of a non-English patent application. The IBSA Institut Biochimique (IBSAIB) hired an Italian patent...more

Patenting COVID-19 Tests: Avoiding the Common Pitfalls

The impact on human health of the global pandemic of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the resulting disease termed COVID-19 cannot be overstated. Not since the influenza pandemic of 1918 have so many regions of the world been so...more

A Method of Diagnostic Sample Preparation Is Held Valid Under Mayo/Myriad, but the Diagnostic Test Was Held Invalid

Nearly five years ago the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decided the controversial case of Ariosa v. Sequenom. In Sequenom the invention was a radically new method of fetal genetic testing by amplifying...more

For the First Time, a Medical Treatment Patent Is Ruled Invalid Under Mayo/Myriad

As discussed in a previous blog post, since Mayo v. Prometheus, critics of medical treatment patents have advocated that such patents should be banned from patenting. While such arguments seemed futile based on the consistent...more

Detecting Disease Is Not a “Tangible and Useful Result” Eligible for Patenting

The federal appeals court with jurisdiction over questions of patent law has consistently held that methods of diagnosing a disease or other biological condition violate the Supreme Court’s ban on patenting “natural...more

Eliminate Medical Treatment Patents? An Effort Approaches the Supreme Court

Will the Supreme Court’s banning of methods of medical diagnosis from patenting in Mayo v. Prometheus be extended to patents for medical treatments? Since Mayo some have argued that some methods of medical treatment should...more

Congress Proposes to Fix Patent Eligibility - Intellectual Property News

Since 2012 the Supreme Court has made three landmark decisions banning certain types of inventions from being patented. First, Mayo v. Prometheus banned patents on methods of medical diagnosis and analysis. Then Association...more

Difficulties Face Cannabis Patents, Trademarks, and Other Forms of Intellectual Property - Intellectual Property News

Since more than half of the states in the U.S. have decriminalized marijuana (those varieties of the Cannabis plant with intoxicating properties), the marijuana business has been growing rapidly in this country. Like any...more

The Hobby Games Industry Needs to Up Its Game to Fight Counterfeiting - Intellectual Property News

Like many industries, the hobby games (HG) industry suffered from unprecedented counterfeiting problems in recent years. Despite steadily rising popularity, until recently HGs were not much affected by piracy and...more

Patenting Diagnostics and Biomarkers Six Years After Mayo

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the landmark case of Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., 566 U.S. 66 (2012), which was hailed by some as banning patents on methods of medical diagnosis. It...more

Rules for Patenting Genetic Biomarkers Are Updated in Roche v. Cepeid

As the readers of this blog are no doubt aware, patenting DNA defined only by a naturally occurring nucleotide sequence was banned by the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark case of Association for Molecular Pathology v....more

A Wish for Nonexistent Cheap Drugs Is Not Standing to Sue

The recent releases of highly effective, and highly priced, drugs to treat chronic diseases has bred a spate of efforts by activists to disenfranchise drug developers of their patent rights. One recent chapter is instructive,...more

Overlooked Changes To Patent Cooperation Treaty Practice - Law360

The recent Actelion Pharmaceuticals Ltd. case brought to light a little-known quirk in how national stage patent applications affect the length of one’s patent term. That case involved a drug company losing five days of...more

A Rare Win for a Medical Testing Patent in Exergen Corporation V. Kaz USA, Inc.

Inventors of methods of medical testing have had a rough time since the Supreme Court decided Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Labs. Inc. In the Mayo case, the Court considered whether a method of determining whether...more

Are Combined Diagnosis and Treatment Still Patent-Eligible? One Court Says “No”

In 2011 the Supreme Court announced that methods of diagnosing disease are ineligible for patenting under its landmark decision, Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., 566 U.S. 66 (2011)....more

Drug Company Loses Patent Term for “Thinking Outside the Box”

The drug company Actelion Pharmaceuticals, Ltd., recently lost a bid to increase the term of its U.S. Patent No. 8,658,675 by five days, ultimately because its patent attorney failed to check a box on the application form. ...more

Can I Sell My Invention? The Courts Confirm “On Sale” Bar to Patenting

Recent court decisions have confirmed that inventors run the risk of destroying their patent rights in the U.S. and abroad if they publicize their inventions or put them “on sale” before applying for a patent....more

Marketing Genetically Engineered Crops Just Got Easier: CRISPR Deletion Mutant Crops May Face Reduced Regulatory Hurdles

From the earliest days of recombinant DNA technology, there has been worry in the policy community and among the public about the release and consumption of genetically engineered (GE) crops, especially crops for human...more

The Government Whittles Away at Life Sciences Patents

The current U.S. Supreme Court has been noted for its hostility to patent holders in general, but the Supreme Court has been especially hostile to any sort of life sciences or software invention. The Court has attempted to...more

Patent Examiners Who Cut Corners in Subject Matter Eligibility Decisions Can Be Reversed

Due to the rapidly shifting requirement for subject matter eligibility, some patent examiners seem to believe that, when it comes to software inventions, they are entitled to assume the invention is not patent eligible...more

Innovators Beware! Patent Reform Creates the New “Anti-Patent” Troll

Recent years have seen a wave of efforts to control frivolous patent-infringement lawsuits perpetrated by so-called patent trolls. These started with the America Invents Act of 2011 and have been followed by the Patent Law...more

The Patent Office Clarifies the Ban on Patenting Naturally-Derived Drugs and Other Products

Since the very beginning of America’s revolutionary patent system, inventors in the life sciences have been granted patents for discovering and purifying natural products. It was taken as a given that a purified natural...more

The New Patent Policy on Natural Products Is a Game Changer for Universities and Life Sciences Companies

Since the 19th Century, it has been considered a given that a person who identifies and purifies a useful natural substance is entitled to a patent, so long as the substance had never before existed in pure form. ...more

30 Results
 / 
View per page
Page: of 2

"My best business intelligence, in one easy email…"

Your first step to building a free, personalized, morning email brief covering pertinent authors and topics on JD Supra:
*By using the service, you signify your acceptance of JD Supra's Privacy Policy.
- hide
- hide