Posts Tagged: "genetics"

The Australian Patent Office yesterday released its new guidelines in response to Australia’s High Court decision on the patentability of genetic material. The good news for Australia, though cold comfort for us on the other side of the Pacific, is that the Australian Patent Office has shown our counterpart US institutions the correct way to interpret and apply an important new case carving specific subject matter out of the broad default of patent eligibility. Rather than declaring ineligible from patenting everything under the sun “involving” a law or product of nature, Australia has instead read the High Court’s decision faithfully yet narrowly to exclude exactly what it said it excluded.

The USPTO has released its ‘Report on Confirmatory Genetic Diagnostic Testing,’ which was prepared to fulfill the requirements of §27 of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act. The USPTO did make an interesting observation that has been reflected in its patent examining guidelines. The USPTO Report concludes that ‘it is unlikely that exclusive provision of a diagnostic test, whether for an original diagnosis or to confirm the original result, will be possible based on patenting and licensing behavior.’ This statement reinforces the USPTO’s prior broad interpretations of the Court’s findings in Mayo and Myriad. Of note is that in the USPTO Report, the USPTO adopts the Supreme Court’s factually and scientifically unsupported distinction between genomic DNA and cDNA.

As always, Samsung has been issued some very interesting patents in the field of robotic technologies, including one protecting a technology that enables a robot to assume a more natural, human-like posture. Home media experiences, including televisions capable of processing video calls and a virtual reality input system, are discussed. We also discuss some patents in the field of mobile technologies, including disaster information broadcasts and traffic information widgets for electronic devices.