Is Biotech Patentable Subject Matter?
As promised in our earlier post (see "Professor Sarnoff Provides His Perspective on Tillis Bill"), here we turn to Professor Joshua Sarnoff's thoughts on the portions of Senator Thom Tillis' (R-NC) bill regarding diagnostic...more
Patent Docs has always ascribed to the notion that respectful debate is good for most issues, and with the adage that if you are dumb, it's best to surround yourself with smart people and if you are smart surround yourself...more
In a breathtaking decision, the Federal Circuit has ruled that a patented method of making an automobile drive shaft is not eligible to be patented because it is “directed to a natural law.” In so ruling, the court has...more
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
In an opinion evidencing the split in opinion regarding the patent eligibility of diagnostic methods, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied a petition for panel rehearing or rehearing en banc, leaving in...more
In Natural Alternatives Intl. v. Creative Compounds, LLC, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a decision by a lower court finding claims directed to dietary supplements containing beta-alanine...more
On June 7, 2018, the USPTO issued new guidance in the form of a memorandum regarding the patentability of methods of treatment. This memorandum, issued in response to the Federal Circuit’s holding in Vanda Pharmaceuticals...more
Federal Circuit Summaries - Before Newman, Lourie, and Reyna. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida. Summary: Collateral estoppel does not apply to a prior decision of no...more
Napoleon Hill once famously said, “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” However, what the mind of man can conceive is not necessarily patentable. Courts have long held that laws of nature,...more
Since 2014, the USPTO has periodically issued examination guidance, analysis examples, and other insights to guide evaluation of patent subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101. These documents are available on the...more
On July 24, 2017, the USPTO issued a 48-page report on Patent Eligible Subject Matter. The report summarizes key court decisions interpreting and applying 35 USC § 101, international views on eligible subject matter, and...more
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California invalidated several dietary supplement product and method patents as being directed to ineligible subject matter, even though they claimed products providing a...more
The Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Apple, Inc. v. Ameranth, Inc. highlights the potential impact of characterization of recited features as conventional, routine, generic, or known in the field without further...more
In a recent article, we discussed how courts have used patent specifications in finding that patents satisfy the Supreme Court’s Mayo/Alice test. However, the specification may be a double-edged sword. Language in the...more
I'd like to go back to some first principles and history. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution neatly divided the promotion of, on the one hand: Science, the fields of knowledge and ideas, by securing exclusive...more
The Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Synopsys, Inc. v. Mentor Graphics Corp., Case No. 2015-1599 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 17, 2016), upholding the lower court’s grant of summary judgment of invalidity under § 101, may provide...more
A recent U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) memorandum to the Patent Examining Corps, in combination with precedential cases from the Federal Circuit, provides positive guidance to owners of software patents and patent...more
Given the volume of district court decisions regarding Section 101, I typically don't find ones that stand out enough to warrant discussion. But last week's decision by Judge Stark in MAZ Encryption Technologies LLC v....more
Claims Directed to Monitoring and Analyzing Data Held to Be Invalid under § 101 - In Electric Power Group, LLC v. Alstom S.A., Appeal No. 2015-1778, the Federal Circuit upheld the district court’s grant of summary...more
My previous blog on McRo focused on the direct aspects of the decision, but there are other excellent points that the court makes and that can be derived from the opinion, and that should play an important role in how the...more
On August 3, 2016, S.D.N.Y. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest denied Defendant Lowe’s Companies, Inc. (“Lowe’s”) motion to dismiss Iron Gate Security, Inc.’s (“Iron Gate”) patent infringement claim. Iron Gate alleged...more
In Rapid Litig. Mgmt. Ltd v. CellzDirect, Inc., the Federal Circuit reversed a ruling of patent invalidity under Section 101, reviving a biotech patent to a method of preserving hepatocytes, liver cells, for medical use. The...more
As we have had the occasion to say before regarding subject matter eligibility, "[o]ne swallow does not a summer make, nor one fine day . . . ," but the Federal Circuit may have engendered a glimmer of hope that it will once...more
The Supreme Court issued an order this morning denying certiorari in Sequenom, Inc. v. Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. Patent Docs will provide more analysis of the Court's denial of certiorari in a subsequent post....more
In March, following the Federal Circuit's denial of Sequenom's petition for rehearing en banc, Sequenom filed a petition for certiorari for Supreme Court review of the Federal Circuit's decision in Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v....more