Researchers Named Co-Inventors on Nobel Winner’s Cancer Patents

A Nobel Prize winner’s fellow researchers must be named on his cancer immunotherapy patents, the District of Massachusetts said May 17.

The three researchers “worked together on important contributions” to the discovery and should be named as joint inventors on the six patents, the court said.

Ono Pharmaceuticals Co. owns six patents related to methods of cancer immunotherapy that stimulate the immune system to attack tumor cells. The invention revolved around “the discovery and characterization of the PD-L1 and PD-L2 ligands, the discovery that the interaction between [T cell receptor] PD-1 and PD-L1 is inhibitory and could be blocked by ...