Chinese Team Reports Cloning Two Monkeys Using the Same Nuclear Donor – But Don’t Try to Patent Them!

Posted on January 26, 2018 by Warren Woessner

On January 25, a team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences published an online paper that will appear in Cell, 172, 1-7 (Feb. 8, 2018) reported the cloning of two Macaque Monkeys by Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer. While non-primate animals such as mice, sheep (remember Dolly) and bovines have been successfully cloned, primates had not.

For an introduction to the technology involved, please read my paper in 83 JPTOS 830 (Nov. 2001), which covered both the state of the science and the law: “The Evolution of Patents on Life – Transgenic Animals, Clones and Stem Cells.” Among other topics, I wrote about the successful cloning of Dolly and continued: Continue reading →

Posted in Patent Eligible Subject Matter, Stem Cells/Cloning | Leave a comment

Aptalis Fails to “Surround’ Apotex’s Generic ER Tablet

Posted on January 10, 2018 by Warren Woessner

Although non-precedential, Aptalis Pharmatech, Inc. v. Apotex, Inc., Appeal No. 2017-1344 (Fed. Cir., January 4, 2018) provides a useful outline of Phillips-type claim construction and requires a close reading to see why the infringement finding by the district court was reversed.

In this Hatch-Waxman litigation, Aptalis asserted U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,790,199 and 7,289,121 against Apotex’s extended release (ER) version of cyclobenzaprine hydrochloride (“the drug”). The Fed. Cir. panel noted that there are two routes to make ER tablets disclosed in the patents – the membrane system in which an inert core is coated with the active drug yielding a core that is further coated with polymer membrane that controls the rate of release of the drug from the tablet once it is ingested, and the matrix system in which the tablets are formed by mixing the drug with the polymer and granulating it to yield beads with ER properties. Continue reading →

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The Twelve §101 Precedential Decisions of 2017

Posted on January 2, 2018 by Warren Woessner

2017 Year in Review - Patents

This is a guest post from the Chisum Patent Academy.

In 2017, Federal Circuit panels regularly addressed attacks on software patent claims as ineligible under the Alice “abstract idea” exception.

The 2017 pattern, with 8 of 10 decisions finding software claims not eligible, was similar to that in 2016 (10 of 14).

The penultimate patent-invalidating decision of the year, Smart Systems (by Judge Wallach) drew an impassioned partial dissent by Judge Linn, protesting that the “abstract idea exception” was “almost impossible to apply consistently and coherently.” Hard to dispute that! Continue reading →

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Aqua Products Sinks PTAB Decision in Bosch v. Matal

Posted on December 24, 2017 by Warren Woessner

The odd title of this post arose from the fact that defendant Autel U.S., Inc. chose not to appeal its IPR win against Bosch that included invalidation of the claims in suit, and the refusal of the Board to enter an amended claim set proposed by Bosch. With Autel out of the picture, the PTO effectively represented the Board and Acting Director Matal was named as the defendant: Bosch Automotive Service Solutions, LLC v. Joseph Matal (Intervenor), Appeal no. 2015-1928 (Fed. Cir., December 22, 2017). Continue reading →

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