A Swiss university can’t claim sovereign immunity to stop a challenge to a patent involving the detection of a mutation in dog DNA, a federal appeals court ruled.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said the University of Bern forfeited its sovereignty when it “obtained a U.S. patent and then participated in licensing and enforcing it.” The appeals court then affirmed that claims in U.S. Patent No. 9,157,114 were invalid because they were found in nature.
The precedential decision, unsealed Aug. 9, shows how “to the extent that any foreign entity is attempting to use U.S. ...