Biotech Patent Eligibility Chaos Spurs Proposals for Section 101 Amendments

Frustration over the patent eligibility chaos for nature-related biomedical claims is spurring a push for proposals to change the patent law, panelists said June 17 in successive sessions at the BIO annual convention.

Paul Michel, former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, said, “The patent system is not broken. The eligibility system is broken. I think it’s a crisis. The Supreme Court moved patent law from the statutory realm, which was predictable, to the legal area, where it is not. Everyone in the patent world has been tackled from behind.”

After the first session, ...