Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Merck – Mayo/Alice Rule Reaches Medical Treatment...
In Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Merck, Civil Action No. 150572-GMS (D. Del., 2016), Bristol-Myers sued Merck for inducing infringement of U.S. Pat. No. 9,073,994. Claim 1 reads: “A method of treating a...
View ArticleGenetic Technologies Affirms Ariosa/Myriad With An Introduction By The...
On April 1st, Lilly filed an amicus brief in favor of Sequenom’s petition for cert. seeking to reverse Ariosa, that caused a lot of buzz in the IP community. (A copy is available at the end of this...
View ArticleMyriad vs. Mayo – Detection vs. Processing at the Fed. Cir.
Rapid Litigation Mgmt v. CellzDirect: Splitting Detection of a Natural Phenomenon from its Application to Yield a Product. Courtenay G. Brinkerhoff at pharmapatentsblog.com summarized the oral...
View ArticleJustice Breyer to Diagnostic Test Patentees –“Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter...
Kevin Noonan recently posted an article entitled “The Fantastical World of Justice Stephen Breyer” that demonstrates, via Breyer’s quotes during various oral arguments, his suspicion that the patent...
View ArticleNew (and Improved?) PTO Guidelines on Biotech Patent-Eligibility
The PTO has released a new set of life sciences’ examples to teach Examiners how and when to reject claims and, hopefully, teach the patent bar how to write allowable claims. (A copy if found at the...
View ArticleDue May 24 — Comments On Improving Patent Quality Metrics
Many patent attorneys received a notice recently, copied below, alerting them to efforts by the US Patent Office to improve patent quality. The notice references a “Master Review Form”. A preliminary...
View ArticleBascom v. AT&T — Patent Eligibility Meet Patentability
…..Or Judge Newman proposes a blended approach when “Abstract Idea” or “Inventive Concept” is at issue. In Bascom v. AT&T, Appeal no. 2015-1763 (June 27, 2016, Fed. Cir.), panel of Judges Newman,...
View ArticleRapid Litigation v. CellzDirect – A Break in the 101 Wall
On July 5, 2016, a three judge Fed. Circuit panel of Moore, Prost and Stoll (Appeal no. 2015-1570) reversed the district court’s holding that claims to a method of isolating “hardy” twice -frozen...
View ArticleFDA Releases Outline of Guidance for Developing Tests Based on Human Genetic...
The FDA is charged with regulating “Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) Tests,” and has just released draft guidance on what needs to be regulated. (A copy of the first draft and second draft can be found...
View ArticleD. Mass Court Extends Myriad to Peptide Panels
In a great leap backwards for patenting life sciences, Magistrate Judge Cabell invalidated claims in a number of patents licensed to Oxford Immunotec that are directed to e.g., “A kit for diagnosing...
View ArticleMcRO v. Namco – Fed. Cir. Reverses s. 101 Invalidation of Animation Method...
I first posted on this case in September 2014, and urge you to find the post and the district court’s opinion in the Archives. It provides a good – well, adequate– description of the patented...
View ArticleUSPTO Holds First Roundtable on “Subject Matter Eligibility Guidelines”
On November 14th, the PTO hosted a roundtable discussion in Alexandria on s. 101 issues in which both industry reps and practitioners were invited to dissect the current Office guidelines. The...
View ArticleAthena Diagnostics, Inc. v. Mayo (D. Mass., August 4, 2017) –“That’s all,”...
Please read my recent post about stage 1 of this proceeding, in which the Judge in 2016 found that the claims to diagnosing Myasthemia Gravis (MG) by adding MuSk to a patient sample and detecting any...
View ArticleFederal Circuit Circumvents Mayo/Alice Rule in Vanda v. West-Ward
After Cleveland Clinic, IP practitioners were left to speculate about the fate of claims directed to methods of medical treatment. These claims seemed next in line for extinction by the Mayo/Alice...
View ArticleInterval Licensing v. AOL — Judge Plager’s Concurring Dissent
The majority of the panel in Interval Licensing v AOL, Appeal no. 2016-2502, -05, -06, -07 (Fed. Cir., July 20, 2018) affirmed the district court’s finding that claims 15-18 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,788,314...
View ArticleEx Parte Nagy – The Reach of the Mayo/Alice Rule Exceeds Its Grasp?
The final rejection of the claims of Nagy’s application Serial No. 14/223,113 was affirmed by the PTAB on July 30, 2018 (Appeal 2017-008793). One of the “representative” claims was directed to the holy...
View ArticleBhagat v. Iancu – Did the Myriad Decision Overrule Funk Bros.?
A September 6th post by Dennis Crouch at PatentlyO (“A Mixture of Known Compounds is Unpatentable without a Transformation“) led me to a closer reading of the cert. petition filed in Bhagat v. Iancu,...
View Article“Big Data” Claims Meet Mayo/Alice Rule
I am going to try to discuss two recent decisions by the PTAB, Ex parte Fiesner, Appeal 2018-00530 (9-10-18) and Ex parte Lehrer, Appeal 2016-007941 (8-29-2018). Both have claims that employ computers...
View ArticleThe Abstract Idea Defense in a Patent Infringement Suit Jumped the Shark in...
Guest Post from Janal Kalis. Nike sued Puma for infringing its fly knit shoes. Puma filed a motion to dismiss because the patents asserted by Nike are directed to an abstract idea. As can be seen...
View ArticleLife Science Patenting to Iancu – “We need help too!”
In his remarks presented at the recent 10th Annual Patent Law & Policy Conference at Georgetown University Law School, USPTO Director Andrei Iancu outlined the analytical framework for the new,...
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