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On March 4th the US Patent and Trademark Office issued guidelines to its examining corps for assessing patent eligible subject matter under 35 USC §101. The guidelines were issued in light of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Myriad, Prometheus, and related cases. See, “Guidance For Determining Subject Matter Eligibility Of Claims Reciting Or Involving Laws of Nature, Natural Phenomena, & Natural Products.” The Guidance is intended to help examiners determine whether the subject matter of a patent claim is significantly different from what exists in nature.

Dilworth IP’s own Dr. Jonathan Schuchardt will be hosting the firm’s first ever webinar this Thursday, March 25th at 1pm Eastern time. The title of the talk is Effective Invention Disclosures and is designed to help scientists, engineers, and business leaders understand elements of winning disclosures that will ultimately result […]

Eugene Hoffmann and David Lund had a cool idea, I mean wicked cool: they filed a patent application claiming a process for weakening a tropical storm by using a team of airplanes to inject liquid nitrogen, which boils at -196oC, into the storm’s eye wall. “Holy frozen bananas, Batman, imagine the royalties when this patent issues!” “Not so fast, Boy Wonder—we have an enablement problem!”

The story continues to unfold regarding the patentability of diagnostics. At issue in Sequenom is US Patent No. 6,268,540. This patent is exclusively licensed to Sequenom and claims non-invasive prenatal diagnosis methods using maternal blood samples. The method provides an alternative to techniques such as amniocentesis, which can pose a risk to both the mother and child. Last year, in reviewing the ‘540 patent, the District Court for the Northern District of California issued an Order holding that medical diagnostic method claims are not eligible for patent protection.

The Supreme Court will hear six patent cases during the current 2013-14 term that began on October 7th of last year. This is an extraordinary number of patent cases, considering that the Court is scheduled to hear just 70 cases during this term, and that these 70 cases were selected from over 10,000 petitions for hearings (called writs of certiorari). In contrast, just three patent cases were heard during each of the 2010-11 and 2011-12 terms, and only two patent cases during the 2012-13 term.

We have an exciting and busy month ahead of us as several members of Dilworth IP’s team prepare to give presentations through various means during March. Mike Dilworth and Rosemary Miano will be speaking at the BioPlastics Convention in Las Vegas on March 6th, Dr. Anthony Sabatelli will moderate a panel of experts discussing the Myriad decision at Yale’s School of Medicine on March 25th, and Dr. Jon Schuchardt will host a webinar presentation for scientists on writing Effective Invention Disclosures on March 27th.

Last year, we reviewed the 2012 patents in the area of Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) specifically related to the FCC process. The original intent, of course, had been to also summarize the 2012 patents for FCC catalysts and equipment. Unfortunately, that goal met the same fate as several of my New Year’s resolutions. A year’s passage, however, has brought sufficient wisdom not only to grasp the trend in my New Year’s resolutions, but to realize I now have two-year’s patents to review in those areas.

The numbers are in for 2013. During the past year the US Food and Drug Administration approved 27 new drugs. This compares with a record 39 approvals for 2012 and 30 for 2011. But what does this mean? What’s in store for 2014?

Michael Dilworth and Rosemary Miano of Dilworth IP are pleased to be speaking at this year’s Bioplastics Conference at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas on March 6, 2014. Their talk, Strategic Considerations Amid the Changing Patent Landscape for the BioPlastics Industry, will address some of the challenges and opportunities for patent protection in this very promising technology area. Billed as the Reinvention of Plastics, the conference is the largest gathering of industry professionals focused exclusively within the field of bioplastics.

For more information about the event, visit: http://www.bioplastconference.com/index.htm

Federal Circuit Decision will not Interfere with Interference
On November 5, 2013 the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit handed down a decision in Sanofi-Aventis v. Pfizer Inc., 108 USPQ2d 1741. The decision is of interest because it had the potential to directly deal with the question of the patentability of biomolecules such as DNA and drug targets. However, the Court prudently exercised restraint in not doing so.