I seldom comment on fellow bloggers’ posts, but Kevin Noonan’s recent article in PatentDocs deserves some attention. He basically has taken the recent PTO Guidelines to their “logical” extreme. The Guidelines contain an example that suggests that the Myriad ruling should be applied to “natural products” other than isolated pieces of genomic DNA. In Kevin’s view the roof has fallen in on isolated, purified natural products of any kind. In other words, if a substance like insulin or quinine occurs in nature so that its isolation does not change its chemical formula, it is not patent eligible. To be fair, the example directs examiners to reject claims to natural products, such as “purified amazonic acid” since “there is no structural difference between the purified acid in the claim and the acid in the leaves [of the tree from which it is obtained].”
That simplistic standard, if taken to its extreme would, as Kevin writes, render almost any purified natural product patent ineligible. But there are some brakes that can be applied to halt this runaway train of rejections. As Hal Wegner has argued in detail, In re Bergy, 596 F.2d 952 (1979) was never vacated or reversed by the Supreme Court when it took up Chakrabarty. After the holding of Bergy was reaffirmed by the CCPA in a consolidated decision with Chakrabarty, the Commissioner sought certiorari, and the writ was granted as to both cases. Before the decision, Bergy was dismissed as moot “leaving only Chakrabarty for decision.” 447 U.S. at 306. Judge Lourie’s analysis of the posture of Bergy in the August 16th Myriad decision (fn. 11) is just incorrect. Bergy is precedential; the second CCPA decision was not vacated by the Supreme Court.
