Patent Law Weblog
Category: News from Abroad
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The following article was reprinted with permission from J A Kemp. The European Patent Office (EPO) continues to grant many patents relating to antibodies, and in doing so applies the same patentability criteria as to other inventions. However, some commentators have suggested that antibodies are regarded as a special case by the EPO when evaluating…
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By Chris Vindurampulle* — Two recent Australian Patent Office decisions have provided clarity as to the patentability of isolated nucleic acid sequences following the High Court's decision in D'Arcy v Myriad Genetics1 ('Myriad'). The first decision is perhaps not such a surprise, however the second decision represents a clear contradiction in Patent Office practice following…
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By Junyi Chen — The Supreme Court of Canada in Free World Trust v Électro Santé Inc, 2000 SCC 66 rejected the use of extrinsic documents such as file wrappers (patent prosecution histories) for claim construction, on the basis that allowing such evidence would undermine the public notice function of the claims and increase uncertainty. …
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By Claire Gregg & Martin O'Brien — Following the recent public consultation in view of the Australian High Court's decision in D'Arcy v Myriad Genetics ("Myriad"), IP Australia has released new Examination Guidelines for applications which may be affected by the decision. The full Examination Guidelines, which can be found here, apply immediately to pending…
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By Donald Zuhn — After reflecting upon the events of the past twelve months, Patent Docs presents its ninth annual list of top patent stories. For 2015, we identified twenty stories that were covered on Patent Docs last year that we believe had (or are likely to have) the greatest impact on patent practitioners and…
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By Liz Cohen — Did you know that in the Unified Patent Court (UPC) a patentee will be able to get an injunction covering a market much bigger than the entire USA, in a procedure that lasts no longer than a year, at a hearing which lasts a day, by Judges who will largely be…
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By Karen Sinclair — The Australian High Court yesterday unanimously overturned six lower court judges and dismissed some very careful reasoning to not only follow the U.S. Supreme Court in invalidating claims to the BRCA1 and 2 gene sequences, but also to go further to rule out the patent-eligibility of cDNA. The Court bought the…
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By Tania Obranovich –- Just over one year after the Full Federal Court of Australia unanimously upheld an earlier Federal Court decision that naturally occurring nucleic acid molecules are patentable in Australia, the High Court of Australia has today handed down a unanimous judgement overturning this decision. This highly anticipated decision reverses decades of accepted…
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D'Arcy v. Myriad Genetics Inc & Anor [2015] HCA 35 By Claire Gregg & Martin O'Brien — The High Court of Australia today handed down its decision in D'Arcy v Myriad, deciding once and for all that isolated nucleic acids do not define patent-eligible subject matter in Australia. Following a five-judge unanimous decision of the…
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D'Arcy v Myriad Genetics Inc [2015] HCA 35 By Bindhu Holavanahalli* and Gary Cox** — The High Court of Australia has today handed down its decision in D'Arcy v Myriad Genetics Inc [2015] HCA 35, unanimously striking down the validity of the first three claims of Myriad Genetics Inc's (Myriad) patent. Those claims related to…
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