Analyzing The America Invents Act
The America Invents Act (pdf) (AIA), which was signed into law by President Obama on Friday, September 16, 2011, represents the first major legislative adjustment to the U.S. patent system in decades (see previous coverage). Many changes are included in the 37 sections of this bill, and they will not all take effect at the same time. The most controversial details, found primarily in § 3 of the AIA, continue to be analyzed and debated extensively elsewhere, but there are several elements that may be of particular interest to GLR readers.
First-to-file (§ 3): The most significant change is from a “first-to-invent” system to a “first-to-file” system. Until now, it has been possible for
inventor A to challenge the application of inventor B, who filed an earlier application for the same invention, based on evidence that inventor A had actually invented first.
ACLU and Myriad Both Seek Further Federal Circuit Review
As we suspected they might, the plaintiffs in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics have filed a petition (pdf) seeking a rehearing of the recent federal Circuit decision. More surprisingly, Myriad has also, though its petition (pdf) is very narrowly focused.
The Plaintiffs’ Petition. Two things are interesting about the plaintiffs’ petition from a procedural standpoint. First, the ACLU lawyers requested rehearing by the three-judge panel that decided the case earlier this summer, not en banc rehearing by all members of the court. (But a majority of the judges of the full court could still decide to rehear the case en banc; they could do so if they found that the case “involves a question of exceptional importance.”) Second, the plaintiffs have asked for rehearing on only two of the issues they lost: that isolated genes are proper subject matter for product patents, and that only one of the named plaintiffs—Dr. Harry Ostrer, formerly of NYU—has standing to bring the case. The plaintiffs did not challenge that portion of the panel’s decision that upheld—unanimously—Myriad’s patents on a method of screening potential cancer therapeutics.
Pigs Return to Earth: Federal Circuit Reinstates Most—But Not All—of Myriad’s Patents
The Federal Circuit’s long-awaited decision (pdf) in Association for Molecular Pathology v. USPTO (the Myriad gene patent litigation) was issued this past Friday. As we were writing, with the economy having slowed to a barely perceptible crawl and a government default looming more likely by the hour, there were plenty of reasons to believe that the sky was falling. But the Myriad decision was not, and is not, one of them.
For the most part, the Federal Circuit’s 2-1 decision returned the law to the state it was in before District Judge Sweet’s opinion turned things upside-down last March. Although full of interesting rhetoric, the court’s three lengthy opinions (a total of 105 pages) are less remarkable for what they decide than for what they invite higher authorities—the Supreme Court and the Congress—to decide down the road.
First, the scorecard. The court’s judgment—that is, the holding, or outcome—was joined by Judges Lourie and Moore. A third member of the panel, Judge Bryson, dissented in part, meaning that he joined only a portion of the judgment (more on that below) and disagreed with another part.
Prometheus Returns to the Supreme Court, Medical Method Patent Speculation Intensifies
While everyone has been busy speculating about whether the Supreme Court will ultimately take the Myriad case, the justices (at least four of them—see below) sprung a surprise this week by deciding to review the Federal Circuit’s decision in another biomedical patent case, Prometheus v. Mayo.
The patents at issue in Prometheus involve a method of administering a drug (specifically thiopurine drugs used to treat gastrointestinal and other autoimmune diseases), measuring the drug’s level in a patient’s body, and then adjusting the dosage of the drug. The Supreme Court will hear the case this fall and should (see below) issue a ruling by next summer, thus drawing to a close a legal journey that began more than three years ago in a California district court.
Patent Update: Looking Beyond Section 101 and the Continued Murkiness of Method Patents
As the biotechnology community awaits the Federal Circuit’s decision in the Myriad Genetics patent litigation, attention has focused on the fundamental issue in that case: whether genes and methods for interpreting mutations are patentable subject matter under section 101 of the Patent Act—that is, whether they are the kinds of things that can be patented assuming that all of the other requirements of the Patent Act (pdf) are satisfied.
However, we have argued in several articles (see, e.g., here, here and here) that the real action is more likely to involve all of those “other requirements” as courts explore other ways to limit the patentability of scientific and technology progress without altering the threshold test of patentability under section 101.
A recent Federal Circuit case (Billups-Rothenberg, Inc. v. Associated Regional and University Pathologists, Inc.) decided under the written description requirement of section 112 illustrates this point yet again.
Billups v. ARUP Background. The Billups case involves a disorder called Type I hereditary hemochromatosis, which is characterized by excessive absorption of iron. The critical gene in the absorption process is called HFE, or “High Fe.” In 1994, Billups filed the application that led to a patent on methods for testing for hemochromatosis (U.S. patent number 5,674,681; “’681”). The court’s opinion reproduces this claim as “representative”:
Fabry Patients Ask for Rehearing of NIH March-in Petition
Back in December, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) refused to exercise the government’s “march-in” rights under the Bayh-Dole Act with respect to the patent-protected drug Fabrazyme® (agalsidase beta). A group of Fabry disease patients had petitioned NIH to grant licenses to other prospective producers of the enzyme replacement therapy because manufacturing problems at Genzyme, the exclusive licensee of patents held by Mount Sinai School of Medicine, had created severe supply problems.
When NIH refused to act, a larger group filed a class action lawsuit (pdf) in Pennsylvania federal court against Genzyme and Mt. Sinai for damages allegedly caused by their inability to get prescribed dosages of Fabrazyme®. As we reported last month, the suit raises novel legal theories and faces an uncertain future. (Earlier this month Genzyme filed a motion to dismiss (pdf) the lawsuit.)
What We Learned From The Myriad Oral Argument
Yesterday brought the long-anticipated oral argument in the Myriad gene patent litigation. After much speculation, the final panel consisted of Judges Lourie, Bryson and Moore. Following the Myriad argument, Judge Lourie was replaced on the panel for the remainder of the day’s cases by Judge O’Malley, lending support to speculation that Judge O’Malley recused herself from the Myriad argument because her lawyer-spouse filed an amicus brief in the case.
What We Learned from the Myriad Oral Argument. For all of the attention focused on the Myriad oral argument, most spectators have only one very practical question: did Monday’s argument provided any meaningful clues with respect to how the Federal Circuit might rule on appeal of the lower court’s startling ruling?
In a word: no. In a few more: we learned nothing from the Myriad argument that leaves us better able to predict how the Federal Circuit will rule in this case.
A Spectator’s Guide to the Myriad Oral Argument
On Monday at 10 a.m., the lawyers for both sides will argue the Myriad case (Association for Molecular Pathology v. USPTO) before a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington. Here are a few things about oral argument in general, and this case in particular, that interested observers may want to keep in mind.
Who’s on the Panel? Federal cases on appeal are almost always heard initially by a panel of three randomly selected judges. (In rare cases all the judges of a circuit will rehear the case together, or en banc—no way to predict if that will eventually happen here.) The Federal Circuit will announce the panel for this case on Monday morning on its website. As of now, all we know is that Myriad—and only Myriad—will be heard by “Panel B+.” The + means that the makeup of that panel will be different from that of Panel B, which will hear the three other cases also scheduled for this 10 a.m. session (a panel customarily hears four arguments in a session). The + designation sometimes means that one member of the regular panel (here, B) has recused (disqualified) him or herself from the case because of some conflict, necessitating a replacement.
Frustrated by NIH Inaction, Fabry Patients Attempt End Run Around Bayh-Dole
Back on January 18, 2010, we reported on the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) refusal to exercise the government’s “march-in” rights under the Bayh-Dole Act with respect to the patent-protected drug Fabrazyme (agalsidase beta). The drug is an enzyme replacement produced from a recombinant mammalian cell line (i.e., a biologic) and is used to treat the symptoms of Fabry disease, a rare genetic condition that impairs the victim’s ability to metabolize fat and can lead to kidney failure and heart disease. Fabrazyme was developed at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, which obtained two patents related to its manufacture and granted Genzyme an exclusive manufacturing license. After contamination at Genzyme’s facility led to a severe shortage and Fabrazyme rationing, a lawyer for three patients petitioned the NIH to march in and grant licenses to other manufacturers. As it has in all other cases, NIH denied the request.
Now, those same patients, joined by eight others, have sued Genzyme and Mt. Sinai (which the complaint erroneously describes as part of the public City University of New York, when in fact it is affiliated with the private New York University) over the shortage. The complaint (pdf) was filed on March 9, 2011 in the federal district court in Pittsburgh. The plaintiffs are represented by C. Allen Black, the same Pennsylvania patent lawyer who filed the NIH march-in petition.
How Will Myriad Respond to the Next Generation of BRCA Testing?
Robert Cook-Deegan contributed to this commentary. Dr. Cook-Deegan is Director of the Center for Genome Ethics, Law & Policy at Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy’s and is currently on leave at the Fondation Brocher in Hermance, Switzerland.
The past few months have brought a number of significant research and commercial developments in the BRCA diagnostic testing market, particularly in Europe. These developments have been met by enigmatic comments from the management of Myriad Genetics, the sole provider of commercial BRCA diagnostic testing in the United States and a defendant in ongoing and closely-scrutinized gene patent litigation. What can these recent developments tell us about Myriad’s future plans in both Europe and the U.S.?
The Next Generation of BRCA Testing. Myriad’s current BRCA diagnostic test, BRACAnalysis (pdf), uses a combination of two traditional technologies—Sanger sequencing and PCR—to identify mutations associated with a significant risk of breast cancer and/or ovarian cancer in the BRCA1 and BRAC2 genes. Although Myriad has dabbled with next-generation sequencing technologies, Myriad has yet to announce any concrete plans to apply any of the increasingly numerous and powerful next-generation sequencing technologies to its BRACAnalysis testing.
Others, however, are moving rapidly in exactly this direction.
