The article, titled 'Was the Myriad decision a 'surgical strike' on isolated DNA patents, or does it have wider impacts?', reveals the results of an empirical investigation about the effects of the US Supreme Court's decision in Association for Molecular Pathology v Myriad Genetics on patent prosecution for nature-based products beyond isolated DNA. The article is co-authored by Professor Mateo Aboy, Dr Cristina Crespo, Dr Kathy Liddell, Dr John Liddicoat and Mr Matt Jordan.
This is the third publication by this LML research team to be accepted by Nature Biotechnology in three years. It follows their 2016 paper 'Myriad's impact on gene patents', a post-Myriad empirical patent landscape analysis, and their 2017 paper 'After Myriad, what makes a gene patent claim ‘markedly different’ from nature?', which identified the types of claim amendments which successfully transformed isolated gene claims from ineligible subject matter into patent eligible inventions following Myriad.
Empirical patent studies have become a core focus of LML research, and will feature significantly in LML's contribution to the CeBIL research programme.