About the Authors

  • The Authors and Contributors of "Patent Docs" are patent attorneys and agents, many of whom hold doctorates in a diverse array of disciplines.
2018 Juristant Badge - MBHB_165
Juristat #4 Overall Rank

E-mail Newsletter

  • Enter your e-mail address below to receive the "Patent Docs" e-mail newsletter.

Contact the Docs

Disclaimer

  • "Patent Docs" does not contain any legal advice whatsoever. This weblog is for informational purposes only, and its publication does not create an attorney-client relationship. In addition, nothing on "Patent Docs" constitutes a solicitation for business. This weblog is intended primarily for other attorneys. Moreover, "Patent Docs" is the personal weblog of the Authors; it is not edited by the Authors' employers or clients and, as such, no part of this weblog may be so attributed. All posts on "Patent Docs" should be double-checked for their accuracy and current applicability.
Juristat_165
Juristat #8 Overall Rank

Pharma-50-transparent_216px_red

« USPTO Seeks Comments on Feasibility of Placing Economically Significant Patent Applications under Secrecy Order | Main | Federal Trade Commission v. Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (11th Cir. 2012) »

April 30, 2012

Comments

Isolated DNA Claims: Mayo Collaborative Services is irrelevant. The Supreme Court’s 1980 decision in Diamond v. Chakrabarty (man-made living organism is patent-eligible) is far more analogous in terms of the claimed subject matter, and thus controls, not Mayo Collaborative Services. Unlike the characterization of the methods in Mayo Collaborative Services, these isolated DNA sequences are not “laws of nature,” or merely “laws of nature.”

Claim 20 of '282 patent (method for screening potential cancer therapeutics): Mayo Collaborative Services is distinguishable for at least the reasons given in the original AMP decision which unanimously upheld Claim 20. The claimed method requires that the host cell with the altered BRCA1 gene be grown in the presence and absence of the compound being tested as a prospective cancer therapeutic, with a slower growth rate in the presence of the compound indicating a cancer therapeutic. If Claim 20 can't pass the patent-eligibility threshold of 35 USC 101, it's hard to see how any drug screening method can.

There shopuld be no effect on the method claim either. Method claim should withstand Mayo/Classen/ Flook/ point of novelty SCT test because the step of exposing the cell is novel since the cell itself is novel.

Likely it's taboo for me to say this on a blog for patent lawyers, but I'm glad the Supreme Court ruled as it did in Prometheus. It will be interesting to see how the Myriad patent litigation fares in light of the high court's ruling.
http://www.aminn.org/patent-legislation

The comments to this entry are closed.

February 2025

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
            1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28