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Category: Patentable Subject Matter
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By Kevin E. Noonan — The Internet over the past decade has given rise to a wide variety of "alternative media" outlets, including for example Slate, The Drudge Report, The Huffington Post, and arguably blogs like this one. Even conventional news outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — After issuing its decision in Bilski v. Kappos, the Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated the Federal Circuit's decision below, and remanded to the appellate court two cases related to medical diagnostic claims: Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. v. Mayo Collaborative Services and Classen Immunotherapies, Inc. v. Biogen Idec. These cases have…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — Although long-anticipated, the Supreme Court's opinion in Bilski v. Kappos did not provide much in terms of "pellucid" teachings regarding the metes and bounds of patent-eligible subject matter. Against this backdrop, the Court decided on Tuesday to grant certiorari, vacate the Federal Circuit's decision below, and remand to the…
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By Donald Zuhn — The Supreme Court waited until the eleventh hour to issue its long-awaited decision in Bilski v. Kappos, affirming the Federal Circuit's determination that an application directed to hedging risk in energy commodities was not patent eligible while determining that the Federal Circuit's machine-or-transformation test is not the sole test for…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — The Supreme Court decided Bilski v. Kappos today and, as anticipated, agreed with the Federal Circuit that Bilski's claims to methods for "hedging" risk in commodities trading are not patent-eligible subject matter. After that, the opinion elevates the analysis to nothing short of advanced tea-leaf reading (including ample evidence…
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By Donald Zuhn — In a press release issued on Wednesday, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) recalled the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Diamond v. Chakrabarty, which was issued thirty years ago on June 16, 1980. In Chakrabarty, the Court determined (by a 5-4 vote) that a genetically engineered Pseudomonas bacterium capable of breaking…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — Myriad Genetics, for itself as well as the named defendant Directors of the University of Utah Research Foundation, filed a Notice of Appeal today in Association for Molecular Pathology v. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. As a consequence, the decision by Judge Robert Sweet holding that patents to human…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — Sadly (you'd expect they would know better), the editorial board of Nature Biotechnology has decided to get on-board the anti-gene patenting bandwagon. The editors are entitled to their opinion, of course, but it shouldn't be too much to ask that they be more informed about the issues. This development…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — At least since William Shockley's crackpot racial theories had their brief moment in the public discourse, it has been evident that merely achieving a Nobel Prize is not a guarantee of Solomonic wisdom, particularly outside the recipient's field of expertise. Or perhaps it is just a reflection of the…
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By Donald Zuhn — On last Thursday's "Colbert Report," host Stephen Colbert turned his attention to the Association of Molecular Pathology v. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office case that was decided on March 29. Pointing to the result in the BRCA1/2 gene patent case, Mr. Colbert said he had found "a reason to be…
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