Stem Cell Patent Claims Rightly Upheld, Federal Circuit Affirms

The Federal Circuit rebuffed a biotech company’s arguments that a patent covering stem cells cultured from an umbilical cord should be invalidated and an administrative tribunal’s decision upholding them overturned.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board was correct to find Restem LLC didn’t prove claims in Jadi Cell LLC’s US Patent No. 9,803,176 were unpatentable as inherently anticipated or obvious, according to a precedential opinion Tuesday from the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

An earlier invention Restem cited to challenge the patent wouldn’t necessarily produce the same cell markers as Jadi Cell’s covered process, and Restem’s inherent ...