Is Biotech Patentable Subject Matter?
Can You Patent Human Genes? ACLU Says No
Yours, Mine and Ours (not yet!): An Update on the Patentability of Human Genes
The transcendental conundrum in patent law in these times is how to overcome the misinterpretation of the Supreme Court's decisions on patent eligibility law by district courts and the Federal Circuit. That these courts...more
It has nearly been ten years since the Supreme Court’s landmark Mayo v. Prometheus (132 S.Ct. 1289 (2012)) decision, in which the Court established a two-prong test for determining patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. §...more
There is a belief in some quarters that the most significant barrier to patent subject matter eligibility reform is an implacable opposition by companies in the high tech sector because those companies are convinced that the...more
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
On May 22, 2019, U.S. Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Chris Coons (D-DE), Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, and Representative Doug Collins (R-GA-9), Ranking Member of the...more
On April 17, 2019, Senators Tillis (R-NC) and Coons (D-DE), along with a bipartisan group of three members of the House of Representatives, announced the release of a framework on Section 101 patent reform. Senators Tillis...more
A method of diagnosing neurological disorders invented by researchers at Oxford University and the Max-Planck Society was found patent ineligible by the Federal Circuit in the case Athena Diagnostics, Inc. v. Mayo...more
Just over five years ago, the Supreme Court began reshaping the concept of patent-eligible subject matter in the life sciences with its decision in Mayo v Prometheus. Decisions following Mayo – from the Supreme Court to the...more
In Part I, I explained some general criteria for laws of nature, considering the prototypes of Newton's laws and Einstein's E=mc2. Now I'll turn to whether there are laws of nature in biology. Biological generalizations,...more
Despite an understandable amount of gloom and doom in patenting circles regarding the effects of the recent Supreme Court and Federal Circuit jurisprudence on life sciences patents (Mayo v. Prometheus; AMP v. Myriad Genetics;...more
In its July 5, 2016 decision in Rapid Litigation Management Ltd and In Vitro, Inc. v. CellzDirect, Inc. and Invitrogen Corp., the Federal Circuit held that patent claims directed to an improved method of cryopreserving...more
Arguing that the current state of the law weakens the patent system and poses a danger to life science innovators, biotechnology company, Sequenom, Inc., has filed a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the...more
In Genetic Techs Ltd v Merial LLC (Fed. Cir., April 8, 2016), the Federal Circuit invalidated yet another diagnostic patent for failing to satisfy 35 U.S.C. § 101 on the ground that the claims recite nothing more than a law...more
Striking another blow against patent eligibility in the field of biotechnology, the Federal Circuit agreed with the district court that methods that use “junk DNA” to detect genetic variations lack patent eligibility under 35...more
Last week, Appellee Natera, Inc. filed its response to the petition for rehearing en banc filed by Appellants Sequenom, Inc. and Sequenom Center for Molecular Medicine, LLC in August (see "Sequenom Requests Rehearing En...more
Colleagues in Australia have been spreading the bad news: The High Court of Australia followed the lead (?) of the U.S. Supreme Court and determined that Myriad cannot patent the isolated BRCA1 gene in Australia. Thanks to...more
Earlier this summer, in Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision by the District Court for the Northern District of California granting summary judgment of invalidity of the asserted...more
In Ariosa Diagnostics Inc. v. Sequenom Inc., 788 F.3d 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2015), a Federal Circuit panel held that Sequenom Inc.’s prenatal diagnosis patent claims patent ineligible subject matter under the two-step test of Mayo...more
With its recent (June 12, 2015) decision in Ariosa v. Sequenom, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Northern District of California’s broad interpretation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Prometheus v. Mayo...more
The issue of patent eligibility has been a hotly litigated issue in the field of intellectual property law, and both the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court have issued numerous decisions in recent years--particularly in...more
On December 17, 2014, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals found that certain claims relating to Myriad’s BRCA1 genetic test for breast and ovarian cancer were invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being ineligible for patent...more
In This Presentation: - PATENT ELIGIBLE SUBJECT MATTER: LIFE IN SOFTWARE/IT AFTER ALICE CORPORATION V. CLS BANK (AND OTHER RECENT 101 DECISIONS) - A Brief History with respect to Software and Biz Methods ...more
On March 4, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a guidance memorandum, entitled "Guidance For Determining Subject Matter Eligibility Of Claims Reciting Or Involving Laws of Nature, Natural Phenomena, & Natural...more
Last month, at the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) IP & Diagnostics Symposium in Alexandria, VA, Sherry Knowles of Knowles IP Strategies addressed the impact of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Myriad-Mayo...more