Posts Tagged: "aclu"

EFF Vows to Take Out Tillis’ Eligibility Bill

Last week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced that it is launching a campaign against Senator Thom Tillis’ (R-NC) proposed “Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of 2022,” which would effectively abrogate the Supreme Court’s decisions in Ass’n for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 133 S.Ct. 2107 (2013) and Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., 132 S.Ct. 1289 (2012). The EFF’s post claimed the bill “would tear down some of the public’s only protections from the worst patent abuses.” While many in the patent community welcomed Tillis’ renewed attempt at clarifying U.S. patent eligibility law, others said the bill would create more problems by failing to clearly define terms like “technological” and including language that would be problematic for software patents.

Other Barks & Bites, Friday, October 11: IPWatchdog Celebrates, USPTO Meets Pendency Goals, SCOTUS Denies IP Cases and ACLU Opposes CASE Act

This past week in Other Barks & Bites: the Federal Circuit issued precedential decisions affirming the invalidation of patent claims covering osteoarthritis treatments and a costs award to Facebook, but reversed the PTAB on a reasonable expectation of success finding; the U.S. Supreme Court issued orders denying certiorari to several intellectual property cases; North Korea acceded to the Geneva Act of WIPO’s Lisbon Agreement; the Dollywood theme park was hit with a copyright suit over use of the Peanuts’ “Christmas Time is Here”; Nokia announced 2,000 patent families declared as 5G SEPs; former CAFC Chief Judge Rader has called on China to move forward with promised pharmaceutical patent reforms; 2019’s third quarter showed growth in the global PC market; and the USPTO announced that it has met its patent application pendency goals as well as a new senior-level position for an AI expert.

U.S. Companies and Groups to Congress: the Section 101 Reform Draft is Good and Genes are Safe

Seventy-two companies and organizations, ranging from Tivo to Bristol-Myers Squibb and from the American Conservative Union to the Alliance of U.S. Startups & Inventors for Jobs (USIJ)— as well as retired Federal Circuit Chief Judge Paul Michel—have sent a letter to Senators Thom Tillis and Chris Coons and Representatives Hank Johnson, Doug Collins, and Steve Stivers in support of the current draft language to reform Section 101 of the U.S. Patent Act. The letter comes as the patent community eagerly awaits a new version of the bill, following three hearings and 45 witnesses in which most voiced their general support for the approach taken in the draft, but several sticking points were identified. The next iteration is expected soon after Congress’ July 4 recess.

Sherry Knowles Responds to ACLU’s Urgent Phone Briefing and Letter Opposing Reform to Section 101

This morning, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which will be represented in Wednesday’s hearing on Section 101 reform by Senior Legislative Counsel Kate Ruane, announced an urgent phone briefing for members of Congress and staff to address the contention that the “Proposed Patent Bill Would Jeopardize Health Care and Harm Medical Research.” The phone briefing, which all interested stakeholders should join, takes place today at 2:30 pm EST and will be jointly held by representatives from the ACLU, the Association for Molecular Pathology, a breast cancer survivor and patient, My Gene Counsel, and Invitae. Anyone who would like to listen should dial in to the number provided here. Below, Sherry Knowles, a well-known patent attorney, policy expert and also a breast cancer survivor, rebuts the arguments made in both the ACLU’s briefing announcement and associated letter to Congress on this topic.

Supremes Rule Isolated DNA and Some cDNA Patent Ineligible

You can expect a near complete cessation in many areas of personalized medicine. If creating something in a lab, such as a composite cDNA, does not make the underlying claims patent eligible because what results is indistinguishable from what appears in nature that means that the fledgling and potentially promising technologies to grow organs for transplantation will shrivel up and die. The whole point is to create an organ that is indistinguishable from what appears in nature so that it can be transplanted into a human body to prolong life. Given the breadth of this opinion and the uncertainty it will cause funding will dry up in the U.S.