The door may now be open for additional challenges to patents covering mRNA vaccine technologies, paving the way for increased competition in the mRNA vaccine space.
On Wednesday, March 5, 2025, the United States Patent...more
Kilpatrick attorneys Yifan Mao and Stuart Pollack recently attended the 20th annual KTIPS (Kilpatrick Townsend Intellectual Property Seminar) to discuss the “The Federal Circuit’s New § 112 Attack on Biotechnology: Diagnosis...more
On January 11, 2024, Kilpatrick Partner April Isaacson and Counsel Yifan Mao presented “Navigating Litigation Under the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA)” to entrepreneurs in the Chinese life science...more
On December 8, Partner Nena Bains and Counsel Yifan Mao presented “Best Practices in Patent Drafting: Addressing 112 and Enablement After Amgen” at the 24th Annual Berkeley-Stanford Advanced Patent Law Institute organized by...more
On December 8, Partner Nena Bains and Counsel Yifan Mao presented “Best Practices in Patent Drafting: Addressing 112 and Enablement After Amgen” at the 24th Annual Berkeley-Stanford Advanced Patent Law Institute organized by...more
In the aftermath of Amgen v. Sanofi, courts continue to invalidate genus claims for lacking enablement. Baxalta Incorporated v. Genentech Inc.2 shows that it is nearly impossible to meet the enablement requirement for claims...more
Kilpatrick Townsend recently held its semi-annual KTIPS (Kilpatrick Townsend Intellectual Property Seminar) in California. Firm attorneys led two days of interactive discussions with clients on the latest developments in...more
Kilpatrick Townsend recently held its semi-annual KTIPS (Kilpatrick Townsend Intellectual Property Seminar) in San Francisco. Firm attorneys led two days of interactive discussions with clients on the latest developments in...more
Kilpatrick Townsend’s Yifan Mao, MSc, and Joseph Snyder, Ph.D., JD, recently provided a presentation at Daybreak Labs on the topic of “A Cost-Effective Patent Strategy for Startups.” The presentation covered intellectual...more
Novartis and Accord Healthcare, Inc. are embroiled in a patent infringement suit concerning Novartis’ blockbuster multiple sclerosis drug Gilenya. Our previous articles Sound of Silence: Claiming Negative Limitations, and...more
United States courts have recently tightened the written description requirements for antibody claims. The scope of issued claims is now often limited to antibodies with specific sequences of the CDR and the heavy chain and...more
Article 76 of the Fourth Amendment1 to the Chinese Patent Law links regulatory approval of a generic drug and patent protection of the brand-name drug. It establishes a legal framework for resolving drug patent disputes...more
Obtaining a traditional utility patent is often a long and strenuous process. Although fast track prosecution procedures may be available, they are often costly and cumbersome. But entrepreneurs often want to obtain patent...more
Inventions with numerical ranges are valuable across different technologies. Obtaining claims with numerical ranges provide competitive advantages to patent owners. Frequently, a claimed range in an application may need to be...more
To satisfy the written description requirement under 35 U.S.C. 112, a patent specification must describe the claimed invention in such sufficient detail that a person of skilled in the art (POSA) can reasonably conclude that...more
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention. To meet the written description requirement, the applicant must convey with reasonable clarity to those skilled in the art that, as of the filing date...more
“A written description . . . requires a statement of an invention, not an invitation to go on a hunting expedition to patch together after the fact a synthetic definition of an invention.” For claims reciting ranges,...more
On August 16, 2021, the Federal Circuit handed down two rulings related to patents issued to Teva, which involve therapeutic antibodies targeting a calcitonin gene-related peptide (“CGRP”). In both cases, the Federal Circuit...more
37 C.F.R. § 42.71(a) provides that “The Board…may grant, deny, or dismiss any petition or motion” but does not provide other specifics. The Board therefore has broad discretion in considering requests to withdraw...more
Many of today’s top-selling drugs worldwide are therapeutic antibodies thus antibody-related inventions can be extremely valuable. Developing antibody therapeutics requires significant resources and time, so it is paramount...more
Intellectual Property counsel often face the dilemma of when to file a patent application: as soon as possible, or wait and gather more support? Filing an application “early” helps to avoid anticipatory prior art but if the...more
Approval Processes -
The regulatory approval pathway for a new “biological product” submitted as a Biologics License Application (BLA) under the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA), is now separate from...more
For several years, China has been evaluating changes to its drug approval system to promote drug innovation and patient access to medicines. The year 2020 saw China begin taking steps towards adopting some of those changes....more
As part of the Life Sciences Patent Network’s 2018 NORTH AMERICA-FALL Conference, Chemistry & Life Sciences Associate Yifan Mao led a roundtable discussion group on “How Do We Ensure Effective Protection of Antibodies?” Well...more
In Re Stepan Company , No. 2016-1811 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 25, 2017) -
The Federal Circuit vacated a Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s obviousness decision for failing to adequately articulate its reasoning. The Stepan Company...more