On July 14, 2016, the USPTO issued a Memorandum to the Patent Examining Corps on patent eligibility in view of recent court decisions. The July 2016 Memorandum extracts more guidance for assessing patent eligibility from the...more
7/18/2016
/ CLS Bank v Alice Corp ,
Examiners ,
Guidance Update ,
Life Sciences ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent-Eligible Subject Matter ,
Petition for Writ of Certiorari ,
Pharmaceutical Patents ,
Section 101 ,
Sequenom ,
USPTO
The Federal Circuit ruled that the cryopreservation methods at issue in Rapid Litigation Mgmt. Ltd. v. CellzDirect Inc., are patent eligible under 35 USC § 101. It therefore vacated and remanded the decision of the U.S....more
7/8/2016
/ CAFC ,
CLS Bank v Alice Corp ,
Examiners ,
Mayo v. Prometheus ,
Method Claims ,
New Guidance ,
Patent-Eligible Subject Matter ,
Remand ,
Section 101 ,
USPTO ,
Vacated
“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” can be good words to live by, but in the context of the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari in Sequenom, the silence is deafening–and could have a chilling impact...more
The U.S. Supreme Court has denied certiorari in Sequenom, Inc. v. Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. (No. 15-1182), declining to review the Federal Circuit’s June 12, 2015, decision that certain methods of detecting paternally...more
When I first wrote about the new natural products Subject Matter Eligibility Examples issued by the USPTO on May 4, 2016, I noted a puzzling difference between the treatment of a claim reciting a vaccine coated on a...more
It comes as no surprise that Sequenom has filed a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court, asking the Court to review the Federal Circuit decision that upheld the district court decision that held its diagnostic method...more
Sequenom, Inc. has filed a petition for rehearing en banc of the Federal Circuit decision that held its diagnostic method claims invalid under 35 USC § 101. (You can read my synopsis of that decision here). Stakeholders in...more
8/18/2015
/ En Banc Review ,
Mayo v. Prometheus ,
Myriad ,
Patent Invalidity ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent-Eligible Subject Matter ,
Patents ,
Petition For Rehearing ,
SCOTUS ,
Section 101 ,
Sequenom
The USPTO issued interim guidelines on 101 (“Interim Guidance”) on December 15, 2014. We summarized the Interim Guidance in this post, and now highlight five things practitioners and stakeholders need to know as they consider...more
In a case styled as In re BRCA1- and BRCA2-Based Hereditary Cancer Test Patent Litigation (also known as Myriad v. Ambry), the Federal Circuit held four of Myriad’s “primer” claims and two of Myriad’s detection method claims...more
In its third opinion reviewing the same district court decision, the Federal Circuit this time affirmed the district court’s grant of WildTangent’s motion to dismiss Ultramercial’s patent infringement complaint because the...more
Judge Stark of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware granted defendants’ motion to dismiss Genetic Technologies, Ltd.’s patent infringement suit with regard to claim 1 of U.S. Patent 5,612,179 on the basis that...more
The USPTO has asked for written comments on its patent subject matter eligibility guidance by July 31, 2014. In this article, I discuss why therapeutic method claims and method of manufacture claims should not be subject to...more
In a unanimous panel decision, the Federal Circuit affirmed the finding of the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that claims directed to cloned cattle, sheep, pigs and goats were directed to non-patent eligible...more
Well, it’s happening. Office Actions with new patent eligibility rejections based on the USPTO’s March 4, 2014 Guidance are being mailed out to patent practitioners across the nation. While some new rejections under §101 were...more