In a talk entitled "What is the Practical Significance of Myriad for Genomic Medicine?", Dr Liddicoat will present a point of view emerging from a detailed quantitative study.
This study focuses on how the Supreme Court decision of Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics Inc has affected claims to naturally occurring nucleotides as composition of matter. The methodology has been to identify and examine patent applications that were pending when the Myriad case was decided. In particular the study has looked at how patent applicants amended their pending claims to comply with the judicial decision handed down in Myriad. This time period and patent amending activity serves as a real-time legal experiment that casts light on the impact of the Myriad decision; different from the opinion-based views prominent in literature to date.
A descriptive statistical analysis of how claims have changed post-Myriad will be presented, as well as several case studies demonstrating these changes. In addition, John will present recently-acquired data from interviews with technology-transfer experts on how these amended claims have affected business strategies at biotech organisations.