High Court Mulls Taking Up Diagnostic Patent Eligibility Fight

A U.S. Supreme Court case over Illumina Inc.’s fetal DNA test patents gives the justices a chance to solidify a road map for how biotech companies can protect their diagnostic inventions.

The high court will have to decide whether to review a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that claims in a patent on detecting fetal DNA in a mother’s bloodstream “are not directed to that natural phenomenon but rather to a patent-eligible method that utilizes it.”

The decision, if allowed to stand, provides a playbook for saving diagnostic patents that could otherwise be ...