Can You Patent Human Genes? ACLU Says No
Federal Circuit Hands Down Modified Opinion in Illumina, Inc. v. Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. Earlier this year, the Federal Circuit (somewhat surprisingly) found claims of two Sequenom patents directed to methods for...more
Case Summary- On March 17, 2020, the Federal Circuit found that patents claiming methods of preparing an extracellular fraction of cell-free DNA that is enriched in fetal DNA were patent eligible and not invalid under 35...more
This month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has handed down a pair of opinions concerning Section 101 in the field of pharmaceuticals and life sciences. In both cases, the district courts held claims of the...more
The latest Federal Circuit decision on subject matter eligibility in the life sciences came down (by a divided court) in favor of eligibility, in Illumina, Inc. v. Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. The claims at issue fell into the...more
Ever since the Supreme Court's decision in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories was handed down in 2012, diagnostic method claims have been routinely invalidated by the district courts and those decisions...more
In a case relating to methods for genotyping a canine breed, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a district court’s judgment as a matter of law that the asserted claims were not subject matter eligible...more
In a post-Mayo v. Prometheus opinion addressing the subject matter eligibility of diagnostic methods based on underlying natural laws, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s conclusion...more
In Athena Diagnostics, Inc. v. Mayo Collaborative Services, a divided panel of the Federal Circuit has provided another guidepost in the search for patent-eligible subject matter in the diagnostic industry. The Court upheld a...more
Federal Circuit Finds Claims Directed to Tabbed Spreadsheets Patent Eligible and Claims Directed to Tracking Changes in Documents Ineligible Under Section 101 - In Data Engine Technologies LLC v. Google LLC, Appeal No....more
Knobbe Martens Partners Paul Conover, Irfan Lateef, and Curtis Huffmire presented "Patent Law Update for Medical Device Companies 2018" at the MedTech Innovation Summit in San Francisco, CA on November 28, 2018. This session...more
Until the cloning of Dolly the sheep in 1996 by scientists at the Roslin Institute, the idea of cloning a mammal, let alone a human being, was an idea relegated to science fiction. Dolly was created using a technique known as...more
In vitro gametogenesis (IVG) is a recent development in reproductive technology, and has been used for creating mouse embryos in vitro. IVG includes obtaining cells from a donor (such as skin cells), and differentiating the...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 August 2nd 2017, the USPTO hosted a Bicoastal Biotechnology/Chemical/Pharmaceutical Customer Partnership that focused on the USPTO’s current thinking on patent-eligibility. The meeting followed the USPTO’s June 25th, 2017...more
While the U.S. is still sorting out “natural products” jurisprudence under 35 USC § 101, the European Patent Office (EPO) is wrestling with the patentability of plants and animals, and has announced an immediate stay on all...more
On December 5, 2016 the USPTO will hold its second Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Roundtable to discuss issues in patent eligibility. The USPTO published a list of eighteen questions in anticipation of the event, dealing...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
On July 5, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued an opinion vacating the summary judgment of invalidity of U.S. Patent No. 7,604,929 (“the ’929 Patent”) and sent the case back to the District Court...more
Patent Having Claims That Apply Law of Nature Is Patent-Eligible - On June 8, 2016, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California issued an order denying a motion to dismiss, and found that U.S. Patent...more
The United States Patent And Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a memorandum on May 4, 2016 (May 2016 Memo) to the Patent Examining Corps to provide further Examiner instructions relating to subject matter eligibility under 35...more
The United States Patent and Trademark Office issued on May 6, 2016, updated guidance to its patent Examiners that would have an impact on patent applications covering diagnostic methods and natural products. The new...more
On May 5, 2016, the USPTO published a Memorandum to the Patent Examining Corps titled “Formulating a Subject Matter Eligibility Rejection and Evaluating the Applicant’s Response to a Subject Matter Eligibility Rejection.” The...more
The collective experience of the Members of the Coalition for 21st Century Medicine in trying to obtain much needed patent protection for their novel, life-saving technologies has led to one inescapable conclusion: It is...more
In June of this year, the Federal Circuit panel in Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc. invalidated a patent on the grounds of patent-ineligible subject matter. 788 F.3d 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2015). While the case is one of...more