The US Courtroom of Appeals for the Federal Circuit yesterday, July 10, handed victory to researchers on the Chinese language College of Hong Kong (CUHK) in a case involving a foetal testing patent.
In a defeat for researchers at Stanford College, the Federal Circuit affirmed a Patent Trial and Enchantment Board (PTAB) resolution which had rendered the Stanford patent, US patent quantity eight,008,018, invalid.
In three interference proceedings, the PTAB had discovered that 4 claims of the ‘018 patent have been unpatentable for lack of written description. The board additionally discovered that declare 25 of a Stanford patent utility was unpatentable for a similar motive.
The ‘018 patent claims cowl a technique of figuring out the presence of a chromosomal abnormality (aneuploidy) in foetuses by utilizing massively parallel sequencing (MPS) expertise to sequence DNA fragments from a pattern of the mom’s blood.
Stanford professors Stephen Quake and Christina Fan (known as Quake within the ruling) and CUHK professor Dennis Lo had requested interferences to find out who invented the “random sequencing methodology” and when it was invented.
In response to the Federal Circuit, the ‘018 patent claims recite a “random MPS methodology for the detection step, which means that all the DNA within the pattern is sequenced, versus sequencing particular, focused sequences”.
Nevertheless, Quake’s specification solely expressly describes the detection of goal sequences in its thirty-plus column specification, utilizing the time period “goal” greater than 60 occasions all through the patent.
In 2013, the US Patent and Trademark Workplace declared three interferences would happen between Quake’s patents and functions and Lo’s patents and functions.
4 years later, in June 2017, the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded the PTAB’s resolution to invalidate the patent, after discovering that the board relied on improper proof to help its key findings.
On remand, the PTAB discovered quotation to a reference and a single sentence in Quake’s specification help random sequencing, however that the 2 are inadequate to explain the claimed methodology of figuring out fetal aneuploidy by means of random MPS.
Quake appealed towards the choice, arguing that the patent specification sufficiently describes utilizing random MPS to find out fetal aneuploidy.
However, this time, the Federal Circuit backed the PTAB and rejected Quake’s arguments.
Whereas the courtroom agreed that there had been restricted disclosure of random MPS, “substantial proof helps the board’s discovering that these two objects collectively aren’t ample to convey utilizing random MPS to find out fetal aneuploidy as claimed”.
Along with discovering that the PTAB was right to search out the claims unpatentable for lack of written description, the courtroom additionally concluded that the board was inside its discretion to not reopen the report for the admission of sure testimony.
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Federal Circuit, PTAB, USPTO, interference proceedings, patent, foetal testing, The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior College
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