Posts Tagged: "Alzheimer’s Disease"

On Tuesday, March 21st, a pre-trial hearing will take place in a case involving patent infringement claims targeting the sale of mice having mutated genes which make them useful for research into Alzheimer’s disease… The original complaint filed in University of South Florida Board of Trustees v. The Jackson Laboratory, which is in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida (M.D. Fla.), asserts a single patent: U.S. Patent No. 5898094, entitled Transgenic Mice Expressing APPK670N, M671L and a Mutant Presenilin Transgenes. Issued in April 1999, it protects a transgenic mouse with enhanced Alzheimer’s disease-related amyloid accumulation in its brain produced by selecting the offspring of two mice, one expressing the mutant presenilin encoded in its genes and the other expressing the APPK670N, M671L genetic sequence; this results in a mouse that develops accelerated deposition of amyloid beta in a period of weeks rather than nine months.

Earlier today, by a vote of 94 to 5, the United States Senate overwhelmingly passed the 21st Century Cures Act. Having passed in the House, the Cures Act now goes off to the White House for the President’s signature, where it will receive a warm reception. “I’ll sign it as soon as it reaches my desk, because like a lot of you I’ve lost people I’ve loved deeply to cancer,” President Obama said in his weekly address on December 3, 2016, as he called upon Congress to act swiftly to pass the legislation and send it to the White House.

The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive disorder of the human brain which over time reduces a person’s cognitive abilities to the point that they cannot carry out the most basic tasks. This terrible disease was thrust back into the national conscious as the result of the death of Nancy Reagan. With this in mind we thought we might take a moment to review what scientists know about Alzheimer’s disease and what treatments and cures are currently being pursued.

The early months of 2015 have been interesting ones for the pharmaceutical industry, an incredibly valuable industry sector that comes under our focus from time to time here at IPWatchdog. The first quarter of this calendar year has seen a number of mergers and acquisitions which are showing us that the patent market for pharmaceuticals is quite active right now.…

The University of California maintains a portfolio of 11,556 active patent grants. Patented technologies which are currently available for licensing through UC include laser scanners for eye tracking, cardiovascular disorder treatments and environmentally friendly water treatment techniques. In 2013, the Regents of the University of California were issued 399 patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, tied for 89th-most. A great percentage of UC’s 2014 inventions were related to providing methods involving nucleic acids, host cells and pharmaceutical compositions.