Grace Yang

focuses her practice on intellectual property litigation in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, including Hatch-Waxman suits, and medical devices, and intellectual property due diligence. She has worked on matters spanning a wide range of technical fields, such as oncology, neurology, genetics, and immunology. Grace received her J.D. from Fordham University School of Law and her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from University of California, San Diego. Her doctoral research was based on developing synthetic aminoglycosidic antibiotics that inhibit bacteria’s ability to synthesize protein by interfering with the binding of aminoacyl-tRNA to the bacterial ribosome 30S subunit. For more information, or to contact Grace, please visit her firm profile page.

Recent Articles by Grace Yang

District Court Broadens Scope of Patent Ineligibility Under § 101 for a Treatment Method

The ‘156 patent discloses methods of treating and/or preventing metabolic diseases, particularly diabetes, in patients for whom metformin therapy is inappropriate due to intolerability or contraindication against metformin, e.g., renal disease, metabolic acidosis, congestive heart failure. Defendants alleged that the asserted claims are patent ineligible because the claims recite a natural law. Plaintiffs argued claims of the ’156 patent are directed towards methods of treating the targeted patient population with metabolic diseases using non-naturally existing DPP-IV inhibitors, which alter the natural state of the body in a new and useful way, and hence do not fall within the natural phenomena exception… Superficially, this decision may appear to be consistent with Mayo – methods of treatment claims that manipulate natural biological processes are considered to be directed to patent ineligible subject matter under § 101. However… it is not perfectly clear that the treatment claims of the patent-at-issue are directed to a law of nature or an abstract idea. Claim 1 is directed to an active practical application of a compound for treatment… The decision also appears at odds with the USPTO Subject Matter Eligibility Examples.

January 19, 2017

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