Podcast: Non-binding Guidance: Examining FDA’s Enforcement Authority Over Stem Cell Clinics and Compounders
A major step forward in using Artificial Intelligence (AI) for scientific discovery in the field of stem cell research was recently reported, reflecting the continued growth of the technology and stressing the need for...more
China is in the midst of a tremendous patent boom. Worldwide, total patent application filings were up 7.8% in 2015, with China accounting for 84% of the total growth[1]. In 2015, the State Intellectual Property Office of the...more
On July 22, 2015, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland dismissed a long standing patent infringement suit brought by StemCells, Inc. against Neuralstem, Inc., on the ground that all those with an ownership...more
Late last year, the USPTO issued its modified and revised 2014 Interim Guidance on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility (Interim Guidance) to assist patent examiners and the public in determining if a claim presented for...more
Last Thursday, the European Court of Justice rendered a decision in International Stem Cell (ISCO) Corporation v. Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks (UK) that significantly modified the landscape for human...more
About a month ago we posted an article on the dismissal of Consumer Watchdog’s appeal at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit following a loss at the USPTO in an inter partes reexamination. Consumer Watchdog, Inc. had...more
The Public Patent Foundation and Consumer Watchdog (collectively “CW”) petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court on October 31, 2014, seeking reversal of the Federal Circuit’s dismissal of its appeal from a decision of the USPTO that...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
In Consumer Watchdog v. Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the Federal Circuit held that an inter partes reexamination requester must establish an injury in fact sufficient to confer Article III standing in order to appeal...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
Last week, in In re Roslin Institute (Edinburgh), the Federal Circuit affirmed the rejection by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) of product claims covering cloned mammals. This case relates to Dolly,...more
Thanks to recent advances in cloning technology, treating degenerative diseases with replacement tissue that matches a patient’s genetic makeup exactly is no longer science fiction. Just last month, for example, two research...more
In March, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) implemented new procedures to address whether inventions that relate in whole or in part to laws of nature and naturally occurring products are patent-eligibility in...more
Generally, the European Patent Office does not allow claims to methods involving the use of human embryos for industrial or commercial purposes. It was therefore perhaps not surprising that the Examiner objected to the...more
The Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB), a creation of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act that replaced the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) overruled the Reexamination Unit's decision that the claims of...more
As reported in my July 8, 2013 post, Consumer Watchdog (formerly known as The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights) and the Public Patent Foundation (collectively “CW”) asked the Federal Circuit to determine if in...more
Last month, Consumer Watchdog filed its opening brief in an appeal of a Board decision affirming the patentability of U.S. Patent No. 7,029,913, arguing that the claims of the '913 patent are invalid because they cover...more
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has determined that isolated, naturally-occurring genes are not patent-eligible (see, Ass’n. for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 569 U.S. __ (2013))(“Myriad”), Consumer Watchdog...more
In Oliver Brüstle v Greenpeace (Case 34/10) the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that any non-fertilised but parthenogenically stimulated human ovum constitutes a "human embryo" within the meaning of...more
Originally published in the Forresters on December 02, 2012. Two UK applications were rejected by a UK examiner on the ground that they constituted the 'use of human embryos for industrial or commercial purposes',...more
Originally published in Forresters on November 25, 2012. Is There Light at the End of the Tunnel? - It is clear from an emerging practice of the European Patent Office (EPO) that they were not widely impressed...more
On October 5, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review the issue of whether the Federal Circuit erred by (1) refusing to find patent exhaustion that eliminates the right to control or prohibit the use of an invention...more