By Dennis Crouch
It has been three weeks since the Supreme Court decided Mayo v. Prometheus, and in that time four additional decisions have been released that rely on the Supreme Court opinion.
- In Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., the Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated the Federal Circuit decision and remanded for further consideration of patentability of Myriad's claims to isolated DNA strands based upon the outcome of Mayo v. Prometheus.
- In SmartGene v. Advanced Biological Laboratories, a DC District Court relied upon Mayo v. Prometheus to invalidate a patent claiming a system and method using a computer program to guide the selection of therapeutic treatments. In that case, the court noted that the steps of the claims were invalid because they added nothing "specific" to the abstract idea of choosing a therapy "other than what is well-understood, routine, conventional activity, previously engaged in by those in the field."
- In Nazomi Communications, Inc. v. Samsung Telecommunications, the patent claimed a method of "executing an instruction" that resolves a reference when needed and updates a data structure to indicate that the reference has been resolved. The N.D. California district court found that the claims do not violate the patentable subject matter limitation of Section 101 because they "do more than recite an abstract idea and say 'apply it.'"
- In L.A. Printex Industries, Inc. v. Aeropostale, the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit was asked to determine whether a lower court had correctly dismissed a copyright infringement lawsuit over a floral fabric design. In a footnote, the court cited the Mayo decision in support of the notion that "ideas, first expressed by nature, are the common heritage of humankind" and not protectable as intellectual property rights.
