Can You Patent Human Genes? ACLU Says No
Patent eligibility is a bit of a mess these days. Ever since the Supreme Court handed down the Alice v. CLS Bank decision six years ago, the distinction between what might be subject matter that can be patented and what is...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
In a post-truth world, it is more tempting than ever to evaluate data based on gut instinct, intuition, and anecdotal evidence. It is thus refreshing when results of a robust statistical analysis are published, even if the...more
This article discusses challenges in prosecuting bioinformatics patent applications before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Bioinformatics generally refers to an interdisciplinary field in which computer...more
The USPTO has released updated subject matter eligibility guidance that incorporates comments on the changes made in January 2019.The guidance is 22 pages long, with three appendices and 87 footnotes. Below are a few of 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
In United Cannabis Corp. v. Pure Hemp Collective, Inc., Judge Martinez of the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado determined that UCANN's CBD patent was not invalid under 35 USC § 101. The court reached its...more
In Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland Heartlab, Inc. v. True Health Diagnostics LLC, (Cleveland Clinic II)[1], a unanimous panel of the Federal Circuit provided yet another guidepost illustrating what is not...more
In a notice of proposed rulemaking announced January 4, 2019 and published in the Federal Register on January 7, 2019, Director Andrei Iancu of the Patent and Trademark Office has seized the initiative in proposing clear...more
On Monday, January 7, 2019, a revised guidance for subject matter eligibility (USPTO Section 101 Revised Guidance) will take effect at the USPTO. With the newly revised guidance, the USPTO aims to clarify and standardize the...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
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a memorandum on June 7 (the “Memorandum”), providing much-needed guidance to patent examiners as to whether method of treatment claims are to be considered patent-eligible...more
In the time since the Federal Circuit issued its Vanda Pharma decision in April, Vanda Pharm. Inc. v West-Ward Pharm. Intl. Ltd. 887 F.3d 1117 (Fed. Cir. 2018), we have had more good news for the patent eligibility of claims...more
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently issued a memo providing examination guidance on the subject matter eligibility of the method of treatment claims. The memo discussed the recent Federal Circuit...more
In the time since the Federal Circuit issued its Vanda Pharma decision in April, Vanda Pharm. Inc. v West-Ward Pharm. Intl. Ltd. 887 F.3d 1117 (Fed. Cir. 2018) the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued two memos...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
As announced in a Federal Register Notice dated April 20, 2018, the USPTO has issued a new memorandum to the Examining Corps providing supplemental patent eligibility examination guidance under Berkheimer, a Federal Circuit...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
In a non-precedential decision issued in In re Bhagat, the Federal Circuit affirmed the decision of the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that claims directed to certain lipid compositions were ineligible for...more
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently published a new revision to the Ninth Edition of the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) (Revision 08.2017). This revision added a number of chapters...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
In Ex Parte Timothy, the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) affirmed the Examiner’s rejection of personalized medicine treatment claims. This decision highlights the PTAB’s willingness to invalidate claims that it...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
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
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