The LML is delighted to announce that Nature Biotechnology has accepted for publication a second article from an LML Research Group concerning the impacts of the US Supreme Court's decision in Association for Molecular Pathology v Myriad Genetics on patent practice.
The article, co-authored by Prof Mateo Aboy, Dr Jonathon Liddicoat, Dr Kathy Liddell, Dr Cristina Crespo, and Mr Matt Jordan, is the second in a series of publications by this team on the topic of the Myriad decision. The team's first paper, 'Myriad's impact on gene patents', was the first post-Myriad empirical patent landscape analysis, the findings which, published in November 2016, empirically confirmed previously untested predictions as to the impact of Myriad, and made methodological contributions to gene-related patent search strategies.
The newly published article, 'After Myriad, what makes a gene patent claim ‘markedly different’ from nature?', builds upon this earlier study, with the aim of identifying the types of claim amendments which have successfully transformed isolated gene claims from ineligible subject matter into patent eligible inventions following Myriad. This empirical study analyses Myriad's impact at the claim level, and provides empirical answers to previously unanswered questions; including whether it is possible to draft around Myriad to obtain claims of an equal or similar scope, and how claims for simple, isolated nucleic acid sequences have been amended to become patent-eligible.