Patent Law Weblog
recent posts
- Moderna Settles Patent Litigation with Arbutus et al.
- USPTO and DOJ Statement of Interest in Collision Communications: Another Thumb on the Scale in Favor of NPE Patent Plaintiffs
- Oasis Tooling, Inc. v. Siemens Industry Software Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2026)
- Why AI Will Not Take Over the World
- BioNTech Sues Moderna over mRNA Vaccine Technology
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Category: Biotech/Pharma News
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By Donald Zuhn — Last month, President Obama signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014, which makes consolidated appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2014. One provision of the 639-page Act, which can be found in Division B (concerning appropriations for Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies), specifies that certain Federal agencies must develop…
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By Donald Zuhn — On Wednesday, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that the agency had reached an understanding with the family of Ms. Henrietta Lacks regarding access to genomic data for the HeLa cell line, which was derived from cervical cancer cells taken from Ms. Lacks on February 8, 1951. Ms. Lacks eventually…
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By Donald Zuhn — Last month, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) announced that researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) had generated a data set of cancer-specific genetic variations, which the researchers were making freely available to the research community. The data set of coding variants in the NCI-60 panel of cell lines…
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By Donald Zuhn — On June 13, the Genetic Alliance announced the launch of an initiative to fill the public information gap caused by the lack of available genetic information for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. According to the Genetic Alliance statement, the Free the Data! initiative, which also includes the University of California San…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — The coelacanth, an aquatic animal described as a "living fossil" when discovered in 1938, was thought to have gone extinct during late Cretaceous period, ~70 million years ago. Only about 300 specimens of the African coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae, are known to exist and a second species, Latimeria menadoensis, was discovered…
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By Donald Zuhn — Last week, President Obama announced a new research initiative designed to advance our understanding of the human brain. It is hoped that the new initiative, dubbed the BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative, will lead to new methods for treating, curing, and preventing brain disorders such as Alzheimer's disease,…
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By Donald Zuhn — Last month, companion bills were introduced in the House and Senate that would require Federal agencies to develop public access policies relating to research conducted by employees of the agency or using funds administered by the agency. The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act of 2013 ("FASTR") was introduced…
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By Donald Zuhn — In an order issued earlier today, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Sherley v. Sebelius, ending the efforts by two adult stem cell researchers to prevent the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from funding research using human embryonic stem cells (ESCs). The dispute arose following the NIH's release in July 2009…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — A generation ago, Jeremy Rifkin famously convinced the Cambridge city council to ban genetic engineering in that city, using the fear of "tinkering" with nature and producing a "superbug" that would hurt the public health and thereby (for a time) reduced progress in biological research at Harvard and elsewhere in…
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By Donald Zuhn — The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) and American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) announced today that the Generic Event Marketability and Access Agreement (GEMAA) has received four signatories, and as a result is now effective. The GEMAA is one of two agreements — the Data Use and Compensation Agreement (DUCA) being the other…
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