Is Biotech Patentable Subject Matter?
Can You Patent Human Genes? ACLU Says No
Yours, Mine and Ours (not yet!): An Update on the Patentability of Human Genes
The Federal Circuit recently affirmed a district court’s grant of Zillow Group Inc.’s (“Zillow”) motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) because the two International Business Machines Corporation...more
As we’ve noted, the Supreme Court is once again considering whether to take up patent eligibility: it recently CVSGed two more Section 101 cases. While we wait for the government’s views, the Federal Circuit will continue...more
On August 2, 2022, Sen. T. Tillis introduced the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (S.4734) in an effort to clarify which inventions are actually patentable and to codify those that are not. Since the Supreme Court handed...more
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is at it again, gaslighting the public in its ongoing crusade against patents. While the EFF does perform some commendable work, mostly in the areas of individual privacy rights, its...more
In an ideal world, patent eligibility would be a simple, clear, and non-controversial inquiry. After all, the purpose of 35 U.S.C. § 101 is to inform the public which types of inventions are eligible for patenting and which...more
The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently issued a study entitled “Patent eligible subject matter: Public views on the current jurisprudence in the United States.” The report was prepared in response to a...more
Since the Alice v. CLS Bank and Mayo v. Prometheus decisions, district courts and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has struggled to determine and navigate the boundary between what is and what is not...more
The Federal Circuit continued its stringent (if misguided) application of the scope of subject matter eligibility by invalidating claims asserted in CardioNet, LLC v. InfoBionic, Inc....more
In recent years, the Supreme Court has decided a number of cases, including Bilski v. Kappos, Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Ass’n for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad, and Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, which...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss on the basis that, under the two-step Alice analysis, the patent claims—directed to a digital...more
The transcendental conundrum in patent law in these times is how to overcome the misinterpretation of the Supreme Court's decisions on patent eligibility law by district courts and the Federal Circuit. That these courts...more
On October 23, 2020, in a remarkable order demonstrating how a “bitterly divided” Federal Circuit views post-Alice patent eligibility jurisprudence, the court denied the motion of American Axle & Manufacturing, Inc. (“AAM”)...more
On July 31, the Federal Circuit withdrew its opinion in American Axle & Manufacturing, Inc. v. Neapco Holdings LLC and provided a substitute opinion. The court’s goal was to clarify why a claim directed to manufacturing a...more
AMERICAN AXLE & MANUFACTURING v. NEAPCO HOLDINGS LLC - Before Dyk, Moore, and Taranto. Appeal from the District Court for the District of Delaware. Summary: Claims directed to a law of nature, without more, may not be...more
274-1 Federal Circuit Revisits American Axle & Manufacturing; Case Remanded to Determine if One of the “Hooke’s Law” Claims is Ineligible under Other Theories of Eligibility - The Federal Circuit recently issued a modified...more
Federal Circuit (Again) Hands Down Revised Opinion in Response to Petition for Rehearing - Recently the Federal Circuit has begun a practice of withdrawing an original opinion and handing down a substitute opinion in...more
Patent eligibility is a bit of a mess these days. Ever since the Supreme Court handed down the Alice v. CLS Bank decision six years ago, the distinction between what might be subject matter that can be patented and what is...more
Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Alice v. CLS Bank, patent stakeholders have faced many difficulties navigating the world of patent-eligibility. Through many Federal Circuit decisions and Guidance given by the U.S....more
Case Summary- On March 17, 2020, the Federal Circuit found that patents claiming methods of preparing an extracellular fraction of cell-free DNA that is enriched in fetal DNA were patent eligible and not invalid under 35...more
There are (at least) two ways of looking at the course of the Federal Circuit's evolving interpretation of the Supreme Court's subject matter eligibility jurisprudence under Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Labs.,...more
This month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has handed down a pair of opinions concerning Section 101 in the field of pharmaceuticals and life sciences. In both cases, the district courts held claims of the...more
The latest Federal Circuit decision on subject matter eligibility in the life sciences came down (by a divided court) in favor of eligibility, in Illumina, Inc. v. Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. The claims at issue fell into the...more
There is a belief in some quarters that the most significant barrier to patent subject matter eligibility reform is an implacable opposition by companies in the high tech sector because those companies are convinced that the...more
ART 2: EFFORTS TO CLARIFY PATENT ELIGIBILITY UNDER § 101 - In this four-part series, we take a look forward at the cases, legislation, and other trends that are likely to have a significant impact on intellectual property...more
This article discusses challenges in prosecuting bioinformatics patent applications before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Bioinformatics generally refers to an interdisciplinary field in which computer...more