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: Patent Prosecution
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By Donald Zuhn — As we reported yesterday, last week the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) posted 48 submissions it received in response to a solicitation for comments on international patent law harmonization. Among those submitting comments were the Biotechnology Industry Association (BIO) (here), Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) (here and…
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By Donald Zuhn — As we reported on May 9, 2007, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) asked for comments on ten topics related to international patent law harmonization. On Wednesday, the USPTO posted the 48 submissions it received, including comments from the Biotechnology Industry Association (BIO) (here), Intellectual Property Owners…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — More than 100 years ago, Mark Twain understood the corrosive power of numbers to sway a debate, particularly when those numbers are accepted unquestioningly and are based on faulty (but unspoken) assumptions. One example in patent law is the 85-97% patenting rate of patent applications set forth in…
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By Jason Derry — On July 8, 2007, the Patent Office will release the next version of EFS-Web. As indicated on the Patent Office website, the new features associated with the release will make it possible to: E-file Reissue and Reexam applications and follow-on documents; Select Accelerated Examination; Select only from a list…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) has now responded to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s rejections of its stem cell patents in reexamination. These patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 5,843,780 (claiming primate embryonic stem (pES) cells); 6,200,806 (claiming human embryonic stem cell (hES) cells); and 7,029,913 (hES) (collectively,…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — U.S. patent practitioners have long felt that obtaining patent protection in Japan was more difficult than in other countries, particularly for biotechnology inventions. An article in Nature Biotechnology last month (Aida et al., "Shortened life spans of biotech pioneer patents in Japan: a lesson from the DNA chip")…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — While Craig Venter is trying to synthesize a "minimal genetic complement" bacteria (see "Patent Life (Really)"), a consortium of 35 research groups from 80 research centers are attacking the problem from the other end of the phylogenetic tree: what is needed (minimally) to encode a human being? Known…
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By Christopher P. Singer — As previously reported on Patent Docs, the biotechnology, chemical, and pharmaceuticals technology groups at the U.S. Patent Office held their quarterly customer partnership meeting on June 13, 2007. While the stated purpose of the meeting was merely to encourage dialog between practitioners, patent applicants, and the Office (i.e.,…
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By Donald Zuhn — As recently reported on Patent Docs, the Senate Judiciary Committee conducted a hearing last week on patent reform. According to reports earlier today (June 12, 2007) at internetnews.com and InfoWorld, five Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are now seeking to delay the Senate bill’s progress, saying the…
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By Donald Zuhn — On Friday, Massachusetts-based GenomeQuest, Inc. announced via the GenomeQuest Blog that GenomeQuest® 4.0, the bioinformatics company’s new web-enabled application for genetic sequence data search and analysis, would soon be released. The new version of the application will allow subscribers to add their own sequence data and annotations to GenomeQuest’s…
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