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This is an article in a series reviewing 2016 patents focused on Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). In particular, this article relates to the technology area of Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR), which concerns the use of microbes to extract oil from oil-containing formations, and Enzyme Enhanced Oil Recovery (EEOR) which similarly concerns the use of enzymes.

Dilworth IP is proud to sponsor the 4th Annual Yale Graduate Biomedical Career Fair, which will be held on Tuesday, March 28th at Yale University’s Harkness Hall in New Haven, CT. The event, which is hosted by the Yale Biomedical Careers Committee (BCC), offers Yale biomedical graduate and postdoctoral students an opportunity to explore a variety of potential career opportunities, hear from Yale alumni who have successfully transferred the studies into non-academic careers and network with business professionals.

Last month, The United States Chamber of Commerce (USCC) released the 5th Edition of the International IP Index, entitled “The Roots of Innovation”. The Index, which posts on the USCC’s Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC) website, was established to highlight the importance of intellectual property (IP) in catalyzing economic growth and development, as well as to cultivate healthy competition between nations. In the current Edition, David Hirschmann, President and CEO of the USCC GIPC, likens IP to a tree. “Just as a tree cannot grow without roots, innovation cannot thrive without intellectual property.” At the most basic level, IP leads to job creation (statistics can be found here on the GIPC website). On a larger scale, IP promotes cross talk and collaboration between multidisciplinary fields, such as medicine, science, and finance.

Michael Dilworth, Founder and Managing Partner of Dilworth IP, was recently interviewed by Tianyi Yua at the Career Network for Student Scientists and Postdocs at Yale (CNSPY) about what one might expect in a career as a patent attorney. The CNSPY was established in 2011 as a platform for Yale graduate and post doctoral students to explore career options and build a professional network. In the interview Mike discusses the skills required to work in the field of intellectual property, explains his own career path, and outlines a typical day at work for a patent attorney.

Dilworth IP is delighted to officially announce the launch of our new Chinese language website on March 16, 2017. Visitors can find the Firm’s website in Mandarin at: /zh-hans/
This new site will be a convenient way for our Chinese friends and clients to learn about the firm: our history, our philosophy, and our team. Michael Dilworth, the firm’s founder and managing partner, stated, “this new site is an exciting step in the firm’s continued work to strengthen ties with our colleagues and friends in China. Dilworth IP is committed to building lasting relationships and providing quality patent and trademark representation to our clients and the launch of this new site is an important sign of our commitment to that.”
We hope you find this new website informative and helpful. Please feel free to contact us for any questions, suggestions, feedback, or comments at info@dilworthip.com.

In July, 2016 the Patent Office initiated the Post-Prosecution Pilot program (P3), designed to reduce the use of RCE’s and the pendency of applications, as well as to improve the collaboration between applicants and Examiners. The program ended this past January, when the six-month time frame for the test program was reached. While the program’s results are currently being reviewed by the Patent Office, in view of its popularity, there’s a good chance that the P3 program will be reconstituted in one form or another. It’s worth taking another look to review what the program was all about.

In January, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a draft guidance entitled, “Considerations in Demonstrating Interchangeability” aimed at helping to implement the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 (BPCIA). This guidance serves to directly address the issue of demonstrating interchangeability of biological products and the standards required to do so. Interestingly, no product has yet been shown to be interchangeable, including the four biosimiliars that have already been approved by the FDA.

Magnetic nanoparticles, also known as superparamagnetic nanoparticles are small inorganic crystals about 5-20 nm in diameter. Two main classes of MNPs currently used for clinical imaging are ferromagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles and ultrasmall superparameganetic iron oxide nanoparticles (USPION). MNPs are usually multilayer materials, which give them their various properties and functionalities for diagnosis and disease treatment. The structure of iron oxide nanoparticles has three main components: an iron oxide core as a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) contrast agent, a biocompatible coating outside the core, and an outer therapeutic coating with specific ligands for biomarker targeting. See (US 8,945,628 by Dr. Ralph Weissleder at Massachusetts General Hospital and US 7,462,446 by Dr. Miqin Zhang at the University of Washington). This unique structure enables MNP accumulation in the sites of interest via biomarker targeting. It further allows the diagnosis of diseases, the evaluation of treatment efficacy, and the localized delivery of drugs and disease therapies. The integration of both diagnostic and therapeutic modalities into one single agent is called a theranostic agent. We will discuss the diagnostic and therapeutic properties of MNPs in cancer.

Dilworth IP’s Dr. Jing Zhou has been approved to practice before the United States Patent & Trademark Office, and is now a registered Patent Agent. Dr. Zhou has earned her doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on biomaterials. She later pursued postdoctoral research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in a variety of areas including biomaterials, nanocomposites, energy storage devices and live cell-nanomaterial interface. She has held a position as Associate Research Scientist/Lecturer at the Yale School of Medicine, and currently also serves as Review Editor for Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology. “Jing has been a great addition to the firm with an incredible knowledge in several advanced technologies, and a dedicated work ethic,” commented Dilworth IP Founder, Michael Dilworth, “with her recent certification as a patent agent, I look forward to seeing her role here grow.”

Dr. Jonathan L. Schuchardt of Dilworth IP will present a FREE webinar on Wednesday, March 22nd at 1:00 p.m. EST. This installment in the Dilworth IP Webinar Series is entitled “Not so Obvious: How the Federal Circuit is Interpreting Section 103.” Since the US Supreme Court decided KSR v. Teleflex, Section 103 law has continued to evolve as courts struggle to understand the proper role of “common sense,” predictability, “teaching away,” and motivation to combine reference teachings. Practitioners know all too well about Section 103 rejections that are conclusory and devoid of a rationale for why a combination of references renders a claim obvious. In recent developments, the CAFC has reversed or remanded cases in which a district court or the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) failed to adequately explain why a skilled person was motivated to combine references. Is this a mere ripple in the court’s jurisprudence or a welcome wave of change?