[IP Hot Topics Podcast] Innovation Conversations: Walter Isaacson, Part 1
Clinton: SCOTUS Myriad Genetics Decision 'Terrific'
Can You Patent Human Genes? ACLU Says No
Yours, Mine and Ours (not yet!): An Update on the Patentability of Human Genes
Life sciences patent applications often contain DNA, RNA, and amino acid sequences in the specification, claims, or figures that are required to be provided in the form of a sequence listing. The inclusion of sequences in...more
The ability of life sciences companies to rely on patent protection for diagnostic methods has been eroded over the last ten years, although recent court decisions evidence a rebuilding framework. While courts have...more
On Friday I will be speaking at the AUTM Eastern Regional Meeting, on a panel discussing patent eligibility issues for life sciences inventions. My topic relates to what the USPTO refers to as “nature-based products,” but...more
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today granted U.S. Patent 10,227,611 to Jennifer Doudna, Martin Jinek, Krzysztof Chylinski, and Emmanuelle Charpentier, the patent entitled "Methods and compositions for RNA-directed...more
It was recently reported that China had successfully cloned a 12-year old schnauzer — the most recent of over 20 dog breeds successfully cloned by the nation so far. "Doudou" the schnauzer was cloned through somatic cell...more
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Mayo and Alice decisions, uncertainty has surrounded what inventions are patent eligible in the United States. In Mayo and Alice, the Supreme Court developed a two-step test to determine...more
Last month, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued further guidance for determining subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101. In addition to a memorandum on subject matter eligibility determinations that was...more
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
It remains to be seen if this new Myriad decision in Australia will be extended as it was in the U.S. to prevent virtually any product found in nature from being patented....more
Like the United States Supreme Court, the High Court of Australia has determined that Myriad’s patents directed to purified and isolated DNA molecules encoding the BRCA genes are unpatentable. Indeed, the Australian Court...more
More than three years after the June 15, 2012 deadline for providing it, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued its report on so-called "second opinion" genetic diagnostic testing, mandated by Section 27 of the...more
A revolutionary biotechnology tool is the focus of an intense biotechnology patent dispute that will have far-reaching impact in coming years. The dispute is over the rights to the CRISPR-cas9 system, a versatile molecular...more
The Preemption Requirement - Preemption is the core concern that drives the Court’s “exclusionary principle”. The Supreme Court in Alice stated...more
In a decision issued December 17, 2014, in In Re BRCA1- And BRCA2-Based Hereditary Cancer Test Patent Litigation (Myriad II), the Federal Circuit invalidated Myriad’s primer claims and detection method claims under 35 USC §...more
After reflecting upon the events of the past twelve months, Patent Docs presents its eighth annual list oftop patent stories. For 2014, we identified eighteen stories that were covered on Patent Docs last year that we...more
Just last week, the USPTO released its revised subject matter eligibility guidance (2014 Interim Guidance on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility “Interim Guidance” reviewed in my prior post of December 16th, 2014). The Interim...more
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today released its latest iteration of guidance—referred to as the "Interim Eligibility Guidance"—to its examiners. This guidance is aimed at assessing whether an invention claimed...more
Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Dr. John B. Gurdon for their respective discoveries that mature, specialized cells can be reprogrammed to become immature...more
"The more things change . . ." is the beginning of an old saw, and that saying has particular relevance just days after the USPTO stopped accepted comments on its Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance. After all, this isn't...more
The U.S. Supreme Court has recently taken a keen interest in whether certain subject matter is eligible to be patented under U.S. law1. In June 2013, the Supreme Court held in Myriad2 that patents on naturally-occurring DNA...more
In re Roslin Institute (Edinburgh) - Addressing patent eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the decision of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office...more
At last week's BIO International Convention in San Diego, Andrew Hirshfeld, USPTO Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy, and June Cohan, a Legal Advisor with the USPTO's Office of Patent Legal Administration, took...more
The Supreme Court decision last year on June 13, 2013 in Association of Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics may have been a watershed moment for the biotechnology industry. So far the effects have been hard to detect, but...more
Recently in Consumer Watchdog v. Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, No. 2013-1377 (Fed. Cir. 2014), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit) dismissed Appellant Consumer Watchdog’s appeal on the...more
MyriadIs Myriad truly authority for the proposition that naturally occurring nucleic acid sequences and a host of other naturally occurring materials are no longer patent-eligible? Was it really the intention of the Supreme...more