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Intellectual Property — patents

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//March 20, 2012//

Intellectual Property — patents

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//March 20, 2012//

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U.S. Supreme Court

Civil

Intellectual Property — patents

Natural phenomena are not processes that are patent eligible.

This Court has repeatedly emphasized a concern that patent law not inhibit future discovery by improperly tying up the use of laws of nature and the like. See, e.g., Benson, 409 U. S., at 67, 68. Rewarding with patents those who discover laws of nature might encourage their discovery. But because those laws and principles are “the basic tools of scientific and technological work,” id., at 67, there is a danger that granting patents that tie up their use will inhibit future innovation, a danger that becomes acute when a patented process is no more than a general instruction to “apply the natural law,” or otherwise forecloses more future invention than the underlying discovery could reasonably justify. The patent claims at issue implicate this concern. In telling a doctor to measure metabolite levels and to consider the resulting measurements in light of the correlations they describe, they tie up his subsequent treatment decision regardless of whether he changes his dosage in the light of the inference he draws using the correlations. And they threaten to inhibit the development of more refined treatment recommendations that combine Prometheus’ correlations with later discoveries. This reinforces the conclusion that the processes at issue are not patent eligible, while eliminating any temptation to depart from case law precedent.

628 F. 3d 1347, reversed.

10-1150 Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc.

Breyer, J.

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