Expanding the Patent Eligibility of Diagnostic Tests and Their Methods
Jo-an Chen There is ongoing debate over whether diagnostic tests and their methods should be patent eligible. As it stands today, these tests are largely unpatentable given the restrictive interpretation of patent eligibility laws in the United States. Some argue that patent claims directed to observing a law of nature, such as diagnostic tests, should remain patent ineligible to prevent an inventor from monopolizing basic tools of science. Others argue that diagnostic tests should be patent eligible to incentivize and encourage similar types of socially beneficial discoveries and inventions. This Essay agrees with the policy rationale for expanding the patent...
The Cancer Immunotherapy Pilot Program and Chimeric Antigen Receptor-T Cell Treatments
Ellen Shamansky The Cancer Immunotherapy Pilot Program (also known as Patents 4 Patients) provides fast-track review to patent applications describing methods of treating cancer with immunotherapy, such as chimeric antigen receptor (“CAR”)- T cell treatments. This article explores considerations for claiming CAR-T cell treatments, including court rulings and examiner guidelines on patentable subject matter in the life sciences, the Federal Circuit’s decision in NantKwest, Inc. v. Lee in 2017, and pending applications and current litigation over CAR-T cell treatments. Read Full Text Here
The Patent Utility Requirement and Its Impact on Alternative Medical Treatments for Lyme Disease
Sarah Murphy Alternative medicine has made its way to the forefront of medical innovation, changing the way both doctors and patients approach complex health issues. Patenting medical inventions promotes advancement by increasing the exchange of vital information. This crucial benefit to society is particularly important for patients suffering from chronic illnesses who are dissatisfied with conventional medicine. Though the patent system requires that patented inventions are “useful,” there is no guarantee that the product is effective or even safe to use. The medical field must grapple with this trade-off between the benefit of new treatments made easily available to people...
The Legal Lag Behind Emerging Technology: Aereo – Innovation or Exploit?
Ruchir Patel Aereo allowed users to stream and record broadcast television to any laptop or mobile device. Shortly after Aereo was announced, broadcasters filed for an injunction claiming Aereo was in fact a cable company, and as such needed to pay retransmission fees. The heart of broadcasters’ argument focused on the definition of “performance” and “to the public” under the Transmit Clause of the Copyright Act, 17 U.S. Code section 101. Aereo contested, stating that its service was acceptable both legally and technically because it simply provided users an alternative means to access free, over-the-air broadcasts. Much of Aereo’s legal...
Deference Runs Deep
Brooks Kenyon Under 35 U.S.C §101, a patent must be either a new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter and, thus, must not lay claim to any idea that is abstract. This abstraction can be increasingly difficult to eliminate when drafting software claims because the implementation of code onto a generic computer is somewhat abstract in nature. Areas of software that are, and are not, abstract have been hotly debated and a thorn in the side of court system. Hence, when Justice Thomas opined that the Supreme Court “need not labor to delimit the precise contours of...