High Court Says Personalized Medicine Claims Not Patent-Eligible Under Section 101

A unanimous Supreme Court determined March 20 that claims on methods of use in the field of personalized medicine—adjusting a drug dosage after observing a patient’s reaction to a drug administration—are not patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. §101 (Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories Inc., U.S., 10-1150, 3/20/12).

Overturning the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the court said that “to transform an unpatentable law of nature into a patent-eligible application of such a law, one must do more than simply state the law of nature while adding the words ‘apply it.’ ”

The court ...