Your weekly dose from the world of patents
EU ends plant patents
Decision: Under the EU biotech directive and European Patent Convention, plant varieties are no longer patentable.
Reason: Allow breeders to access varieties to breed new varieties.
Impact: All proceedings that entirely revolve around the patentability of a plant (or animal) obtained by an essentially biological process will be automatically suspended. Existing plant patents will not survive. New patents of this type will no longer be granted either.
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India’s CSIR-Tech closes down
Decision: CSIR-Tech, the commercialization arm of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India closes down. CSIR tech had 4,500 Indian and 8,800 foreign patents filed.
Reason: No revenue from patents, although several patents have been licensed.
CSIR director commented that most of CSIR’s patents were “bio-data patents”, filed solely to enhance the value of a scientist’s resume and that the extensive expenditure of public funds spent in filing and maintaining patents was unviable.
Impact: Filings will reduce. Scientists will have to find alternative resources to file patent applications.
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Drug-abuse deterrent Guardian technology
Decision: Patents granted 9,549,899 (US); 2393487 (European); 2015200243 (Australian) owned by Egalet, a Pennsylvania-based company.
Reason: Novel Guardian Technology that encapsulates the drug in PEO polymer and a stabilizer makes it resistant to tampering. Methods for abusing prescription pharmaceutical compositions are varied and can include, for example, extraction, melting, volatilization, physical tampering (e.g., grinding, grating, crushing, etc.), or direct administration. Guardian protects against most.
Impact: Adoption of this technology by drug-manufacturers on formulations of major abused drugs.
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Win for generic Argentum on VIMPAT
Decision: Argentum, a generic manufacturer gets PTO to take UCB’s VIMPAT (antielpileptic/anticonvulsant) to Patent Trial and Appeal Board
Reason: The U.S. Patent Office granted Argentum Pharmaceuticals LLC’s petition for inter partes review and concluded that Argentum has established a “reasonable likelihood that it would prevail in showing that claims 1-13 of the U.S. Patent RE 38,551 are unpatentable.
Impact: Most likely UCB will loose the patent. A win for generic manufacturers who are questioning patents using post-grant review mechanisms.
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Myriad vs Esoterix (LabCorp) Tit for Tat DNA analysis patent fight
Decision: Pending. Esoterix is suing Myriad for patent infringement in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, alleging that Myriad’s MyRisk Hereditary Cancer Test infringes the JHU patents that Esoterix licenses.
Reason: Myriad approached Patent Trial and Appeal Board for invalidating all four patents in question because they are obvious or anticipated because of prior research publications.
Impact: Unclear at the moment.
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iSPERSE Inhaled Drug Technology Patent
Decision: Patent EP 2410981 for iSPERSE owned by Pulmatrix.
Background: iSPERSE (inhaled Small Particles Easily Respirable and Emitted). A respirable dry powder comprising respirable dry particles that comprise a divalent metal cation salt; wherein the divalent metal cation salt provides divalent metal cation in an amount of about 5% or more by weight of the dry particle and wherein the respirable dry particles have a volume median geometric diameter (VMGD) of about 10 microns or less and a dispersibility ratio (1/4 bar) of less than about 2 as measured by laser diffraction (RODOS/HELOS system).
Impact: May replace aerosol and other blended dry powder formulations for inhalation. Pulmatrix applications pending in other patent offices as well.
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About the author:
Authored by Dr Syam Anand, PhD (Indian Institute of Science, IISc; Post-Doctoral research, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; Faculty, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Founder and US Patent Agent, Mainline Intellectual Property LLC, Ardmore, Philadelphia USA). Syam has over 20 years experience in diverse areas of Science with domain knowledge in Life Sciences and Intellectual Property. Dr. Anand is also an inventor and budding entrepreneur. A rationalist, Dr. Anand enjoys science at all levels and advocates the use of scientific methods for answering all questions and solving all problems and make common people curious and interested in understanding their worlds.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/syamprasadanand
Featured Image source: Pixabay
This work by ClubSciWri is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
