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#WorkforceWednesday: Invention Ownership - Why the Tense Matters in Employee IP Provisions - Employment Law This Week® - Spilling Secrets Podcast
Patent Dual-application Strategy in China
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Cell and gene therapies represent a transformative frontier in modern medicine, offering potential cures for previously untreatable conditions. However, securing intellectual property (IP) protection for these innovations...more
Addressing the distinction between conception and reduction to practice and the requirement for written description in the unpredictable arts, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit explained that proof of conception...more
The CRISPR-Cas9 patent landscape remains complex and unsettled. The Federal Circuit’s latest decision in University of California v. Broad Institute1 revived the high-stakes dispute between UC2 and Broad3 over foundational...more
The use of microorganisms in human industry is ancient, but has increased markedly in recent years. The modern recognition of the role of microbial communities in the human body has intensified innovation in fields like...more
Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing life science R&D (particularly in the realm of drug discovery) and challenging the traditional "human inventorship" requirement for U.S. patents. Recent guidance from the USPTO...more
In 2024, not one but two Nobel Prizes (in Chemistry and Physics) were awarded to researchers for their work in artificial intelligence ("AI"). Particularly noteworthy for the life science community is the Nobel Prize in...more
This post is part of MoFo’s 2025 Intersection of AI and Life Sciences blog series. In this blog series, we explore how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing research, innovation, and patient care in the life sciences....more
The scientific benefits and legal risks of AI-driven drug discovery are consequential. But recent IP law decisions allude to a general concept that IP rights will not be awarded if AI completely or significantly replaces...more
Hosted by American Conference Institute, the 22nd Advanced Summit on Life Sciences Patents returns for another exciting year with curated programming that will provide practical insights on how to maximize your patent term...more
On February 12, 2024, the US Patent Office and Trademark Office (USPTO) released the Inventorship Guidance for AI-assisted Inventions (the Guidance). ...more
The Department of Commerce and the National Institute of Standards and Technology are requesting comments on a “draft guidance framework designed to help federal agencies evaluate when it may be appropriate to exercise...more
Life sciences patent applications often contain DNA, RNA, and amino acid sequences in the specification, claims, or figures that are required to be provided in the form of a sequence listing. The inclusion of sequences in...more
In three previous blog posts, we have discussed recent inventorship issues surrounding Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) and its implications for life sciences innovations – focusing specifically on scientist Stephen Thaler’s...more
Patent protection, regulatory exclusivity and product life cycle management should be at the core of any company’s life science development strategy. A well-integrated strategy will be critical to securing investments,...more
Our previous blog posts, Artificial Intelligence as the Inventor of Life Sciences Patents? and Update on Artificial Intelligence: Court Rules that AI Cannot Qualify As “Inventor,” discuss recent inventorship issues...more
The recently reversed jury verdict and billion-dollar judgment in favor of Juno Therapeutics on the grounds that the asserted claims did not satisfy the written description requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 112. See Juno...more
Striking a blow to patent applicants seeking to assert inventorship by artificial intelligence (“AI”) systems, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled on September 3, 2021 that an AI machine cannot...more
In recent years, AI patent activity has exponentially increased. The figure below shows the volume of public AI patent applications categorized by AI component in the U.S. from 1990-2018. The eight AI components in FIG. 1 are...more
Artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized many technology areas. As a few examples, it has already been instrumental in improving and enabling voice recognition algorithms, digital assistants, advertisement...more
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published the latest revision to its Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) on June 30, 2020. According to the Executive Summary, in this revision, nearly all of the...more
USPTO Clarifies Subject Matter Eligibility with New Guidance - The USPTO rang in the new year by releasing new Examiner Guidance that could potentially benefit patent applicants who have previously encountered difficulty...more
At a symposium and webinar presented by Fenwick & West and Mewburn Ellis, we asked U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and European Patent Office examiners to provide perspective on the preparation and prosecution of patent...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
The current U.S. Supreme Court has been noted for its hostility to patent holders in general, but the Supreme Court has been especially hostile to any sort of life sciences or software invention. The Court has attempted to...more