Patent Law Weblog
recent posts
- Apple v. Squires: USPTO Director Has Unlimited Discretion on IPR Institution
- The Ghost in the Machine: Why GenAI Can Be Both a Brilliant Researcher and a Terrible Advocate
- Bayer Files Suit Against Trio of COVID-19 Vaccine Makers
- Allen v. Cooper (4th Cir. 2026)
- To Require an Inventor ID, or Not to Require an Inventor ID – That Is the Question
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Category: Biotech/Pharma News
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By Donald Zuhn — Last week, diagnostics services provider Quest Diagnostics and Inserm, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research institution, announced the launch of BRCA Share, a new datashare initiative that will provide scientists and laboratory organizations with open access to BRCA1 and BRCA2 genetic data. According to the initiative's co-founders, the…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — One of the consequences of the explication of human genomic DNA by the Human Genome Project and related efforts has been a better understanding of anthropological history, i.e., how the human population has changed geographically over time. This better understanding has been set forth in broad strokes based on mitochondrial…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — One of the most iconic observations in biology is Charles Darwin's study of the finches of the Galapagos Islands, and his realization that they had all arisen from the same ancestral bird population. While pigeon breeding (as well as animal husbandry in general) had a long lineage in Europe, there…
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It seems that Orwell was right: all pigs are equal, but some are more equal than others. By Kevin E. Noonan — The question of how diverse different breeds of domesticated animals may be has begun to be addressed with the completion of many "genome projects" directed towards household animals like dogs and cats. Pigs…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — The phylogenetic Order Diptera comprises the "true" flies (defined as having a single pair of wings arising from the thorax) and is first found in the fossil record in the Middle Triassic (~245 million years ago). It is one of the most evolutionarily successful, comprising 120,000 known species and thought…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — Earlier this month, an international effort* led by Stephen J. O'Brien at the Oceanographic Center, Nova Southeastern University, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida reported the complete genomic sequencing of the domestic cat, Felix catus. The report, entitled "Annotated features of domestic cat – Felis catus genome," was published in GigaScience 2014, 3:13 (August…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — President Obama has reportedly decided against nominating Johnson & Johnson executive Philip Johnson in the face of political pressure from the hi-tech industry and Members of Congress, including Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), as reported by The Wall Street Journal and GigaOm ("White House pulls plug on controversial Patent Office nominee…
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By Donald Zuhn — Last month, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) introduced a bill in the House to amend the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act with respect to the commercialization of food produced from, containing, or consisting of a bioengineered organism. The bill (H.R. 4432), entitled the "Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2014," would…
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By Donald Zuhn — Last month, in a letter sent to the U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador Michael Froman, five Representatives reiterated the importance of incorporating the 2007 Bipartisan Agreement on Trade Policy into the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). The TPP is a multilateral free trade agreement currently being negotiated by Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — Most recent academic and some popular assessments of the effects of the Bayh-Dole Act have been critical. This has been due in part to political opposition to licensing university technology (and the purported soiling of the purity of the academic mission), the desire of corporate entities (foreign and domestic) to…
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