The Federal Circuit has been active in clarifying what constitutes patentable subject matter in the medicinal and biotechnology fields, issuing a precedential and nonprecedential opinions over the last few weeks. The cases highlight the importance of including manipulation steps in patent claims, i.e. where a human provides an active step in the claimed subject matter […]
Read MoreSince the Supreme Court issued its opinion in the Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. and Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., it has been increasingly difficult for medical diagnostics to become patented or survive a patentability challenge. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court decisions, which applied to a breast cancer test […]
Read MoreThe withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, i.e. Brexit, is about 8 months from now, and the EU has begun issuing notifications of the implications on various sectors of the economy, including trademarks.[i] The EU permits entities to obtain trademarks locally from specific countries, like Germany or France, or obtaining EU trademarks, […]
Read MoreThe Federal Circuit Refines Patentability Requirements in pharmaceutical and Chemical Technologies A decision from the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has refined what is required to show obviousness and anticipation in a pharmaceutical patent. The patent involved lacosamide, an amino acid-like drug used in epilepsy treatment, shown below: Accord, a generic drug manufacturer, submitted an […]
Read MoreThe U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently issued new guidelines to determine patent eligibility. For years after Alice,[i] Mayo,[ii] and Myriad,[iii] software and biotechnology patent applicants have had difficulty patenting many inventions, particularly in the trending “personalized medicine” field where patient genetics and proteomics are considered when selecting treatment regimens.
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