Patent Baristas

The question of to what extent genes are patentable will be argued before the Supreme Court on April 15. The Supreme Court’s decision in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics may finally settle a long-standing controversy. This whole brouhaha has to do with U.S. Patent Nos. 5,747,282; 5,837,492; 5,693,473; 5,709,999; 5,710,001; 5,753,441; 6,033,857.  The composition claims […]

With four days left until BIO 2012 in Boston, EvaluatePharma’s World Preview 2018 warns of excessive R&D spending, but patent cliff may “liberate” drug companies.  EvaluatePharma released a report on the pharmaceutical industry entitled “World Preview 2018: Embracing the Patent Cliff,” whcih includes analysts’ forecasts on which companies and products will come out as winners […]

“The world is shifting to an innovation economy and nobody does innovation better than America. ” —President Obama, December 6, 2011 On September 16, 2011, President Obama announced that his Administration would release a National Bioeconomy Blueprint as part of his commitment to supporting scientific discovery and technological breakthroughs to ensure sustainable economic growth, improve […]

The Hague rendered a judgment in the patent case between Taste of Nature (Koppert Cress) and Cresco on the patentability of a plant (Raphanus sativa) obtained by an unpatentable biological process. Court of the Hague, 408315 / KG ZA 11-1414. Taste of Nature started the summary proceedings in early December 2011. They were of the […]

“There are 10,000 baby boomers entering Medicare every day… If you could delay the onset of Alzheimer’s by five years, you’d save Medicare $50 billion a year. That’s what biotechnology companies do.”  ~Jim Greenwood James Greenwood, President & CEO of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) gave the keynote speech at the BioOhio conference yesterday outlining […]

In a 2-1 decision, the Federal Circuit upheld that companies can patent genes but decided that they cannot patent methods to compare the gene sequences. The Federal Circuit handed down a decision on the Myriad Genetics appeal from the decision of the US District Court holding that a gaggle of medical organizations, researchers, genetic counselors, […]

The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) hosted a U.S./China Biotechnology Examiner Workshop with U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) on March 28, 2011 in Beijing, China. The workshop which was organized by BIO for SIPO examiners, focused on biotechnology patenting and encouraged bilateral cooperation between SIPO and the USPTO. […]

The Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) an amicus curiae brief in the AMP v. USPTO and Myriad Genetics case, a lawsuit challenging patents covering diagnostic tests for mutations in genes.  In the district court, the University of Utah and Myriad Genetics lost in a U.S. court ruling over patents for detecting inherited breast cancer related […]