Patentable Subject Matters : Focusing on the Discussion of Expanding Patentable Subject Matters

3d Molecular Structures: Patentable Subject Matter under 35 U.s.c. § 101?

With the advent of protein engineering, the determination of a protein’s 3D structure has taken on a whole new importance. This has prompted some to call for the United States Patent and Trademark Office [USPTO] to break with tradition and allow patents on the three-dimensional structural information of proteins. This iBrief will discuss whether such information would constitute patentable subj...

Genes 101: Are Human Genes Patentable Subject Matter?

Claiming a Cell Reset Button: Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells and Preparation Methods as Patentable Subject Matter

In 2006, a team of scientists discovered a method to create pluripotent stem cells—cells that have the potential to become almost any other type of cell in the human body—by inserting specific genes into a skin cell. The resulting cells were called induced pluripotent stem cells (“iPS cells”). The ability to manufacture stem cells could eventually eliminate the need to harvest stem cells from e...

Patentable subject matter, TRIPS and the European Biotechnology Directive: Australia and patenting human genes.

This paper maintains that the word ‘inventions’ in art 27.1 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights 19941 (‘TRIPS’) imposes an obligation on member countries to ensure that the subject matter of a patent application be scrutinised and not presumed. Article 27.1 of TRIPS provides that ‘[p]atents shall be available for any inventions, whether products or processe...

The Federal Circuit's decision in Myriad: isolated DNA molecules are patentable subject matter.