(March 21, 2012, Weil News)
Patent Litigation partner Edward Reines was quoted by both
The Wall Street Journal and the
National Law Journal on the US Supreme Court's unanimous ruling in
Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories Inc. that processes based on nothing more than natural laws or natural phenomena were not patentable. The Court's March 20 decision in the case, which involved the validity of patents for a diagnostic test used in connection with the treatment of autoimmune diseases, overturned a prior ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that upheld the patent.
Mr. Reines, who filed an amicus brief in the case on behalf of several personalized-medicine companies, called the decision significant and likely to have consequences beyond the life sciences field. Saying it contained both good news and bad news for the personalized-medicine industry, he noted the decision "doesn't provide clarity as to what is acceptable but it also doesn't provide a mandate to lower courts which would wipe out all personalized medicine. …The question is how much innovation we can have in this area."
A link to the
National Law Journal article, entitled "Unanimous Court Finds Diagnostic Process Not Patentable," can be found
here and a link to
The Wall Street Journal article, "Top Court's Patent Rejection Alarms the Biotech Industry," can be found
here (both may require registration/subscription).