“Fed Circuit Affirms Patent Ineligibility Of Sequenom Prenatal Test Methods” (featured quotes)
June 15, 2015Bloomberg BNA’s Daily Report for Executives featured quotes from partner David Gass, in the article “Fed Circuit Affirms Patent Ineligibility Of Sequenom Prenatal Test Methods.” David commented on the recent Sequenom Inc. decision.
Gass: Still Some Wiggle Room
“I would not view this decision—alone or in combination with any other decision—as the death of diagnostic patent claims,” David A. Gass of Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP, Chicago, said in an e-mail message to Bloomberg BNA. “However, it is now one more hurdle that the industry and the biotechnology patent bar must deal with.”
Gass saw one area where the claims here were lacking, where other diagnostic claims might still succeed.
“It is possible that claims with some additional specificity with regard to how to practice the invention (e.g., machines, reagents, or steps to achieve the goals of the method) would have been analyzed differently,” he said. “In patent cases, the wording of the patent claims matters and usually is the focus of intense scrutiny.”