By Dennis Crouch
Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) and ACLU v. USPTO and Myriad Genetics (Fed. Cir. 2012)
On remand from the Supreme Court (GVR), a three-member panel of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has released its highly anticipated decision in AMP v. Myriad. The key results:
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Affirmed: The courts properly have jurisdiction over the declaratory judgment case.
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Reversed: Myriad's composition claims to isolated DNAs, including cDNAs fall within the scope of Section 101 patentable subject matter.
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Affirmed: Myriad's method claims directed to comparing or analyzing gene sequences are not subject matter eligible.
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Reversed: Myriad's method claim to screening potential cancer therapeutics via in vitro changes is subject matter eligible.
This decision largely follows the decision previously released by the same panel in 2011. Each member of the court wrote separate opinions, with the opinion of the court filed by Judge Lourie, Judge Moore concurring in part and Judge Bryson dissenting in part. In dissent, Judge Bryson again employed his leaf analogy – arguing that a gene that was merely isolated from the human body cannot itself be patentable in the same way that a naturally grown leaf does not become patentable simply because it is plucked from its tree. Judge Bryson writes:
[E]xtracting a gene is akin to snapping a leaf from a tree. Like a gene, a leaf has a natural starting and stopping point. It buds during spring from the same place that it breaks off and falls during autumn. Yet prematurely plucking the leaf would not turn it into a human-made invention. That would remain true if there were minor differences between the plucked leaf and the fallen autumn leaf, unless those differences imparted "markedly different characteristics" to the plucked leaf.
The majority (here judges Lourie and Moore) disputed the leaf analogy based upon the apparent technical difficulty of isolating human DNA.
It is also important to dispute the dissent's analogy to snapping a leaf from a tree. With respect, no one could contemplate that snapping a leaf from a tree would be worthy of a patent, whereas isolating genes to provide useful diagnostic tools and medicines is surely what the patent laws are intended to encourage and protect. Snapping a leaf from a tree is a physical separation, easily done by anyone. Creating a new chemical entity is the work of human transformation, requiring skill, knowledge, and effort.
Although it may well be comparatively difficult to isolate DNA, at the time of the invention (and even more so today) the process of isolating human DNA was well known and (once the gene sequence was known) was not something difficult for one skilled in this art. I personally isolated selected portions of DNA (non-human) back in 1992 (before the priority date) as part of the introductory biology course that I took in college. It was easy. The majority's analysis here essentially rejects any notion that the Mayo court would find an invention consisting of a combination of old-technology + newly-discovered-product-of-nature to be subject matter ineligible.
The core of the majority argument regarding the isolated DNA claims is that the process of removing the DNA from the human body necessarily transforms those molecules into something new and different. As Locke might say, the mixture of the naturally occurring DNA with human ingenuity and labor resulted in a new arrangement of matter heretofore never seen. The Judge Lourie writes:
The isolated DNA molecules before us are not found in nature. They are obtained in the laboratory and are man-made, the product of human ingenuity. While they are prepared from products of nature, so is every other composition of matter. All new chemical or biological molecules, whether made by synthesis or decomposition, are made from natural materials. For example, virtually every medicine utilized by today's medical practitioners, and every manufactured plastic product, is either synthesized from natural materials (most often petroleum fractions) or derived from natural plant materials. But, as such, they are different from natural materials, even if they are ultimately derived from them. The same is true of isolated DNA molecules. . . .
While purified natural products thus may or may not qualify for patent under § 101, the isolated DNAs of the present patents constitute an a fortiori situation, where they are not only purified; they are different from the natural products in "name, character, and use." (quoting Chakrabarty).
To be clear, the change in the molecule that the court is discussing is that the isolated DNA molecule is cleaved from the larger chromosomal DNA molecule by enzymatically cutting it off at each end and slightly altering the terminal amino acid groups. In a concurring opinion, Judge Moore agreed that the isolated DNA is patent eligible, but rejected the notion that the chemical difference between the in situ gene (part of the chromosome) and the isolated gene is sufficient to justify the conclusion. Rather, Judge Moore identified the altered chemical along with the new and beneficial utility achieved because of the isolation as dual keys to patent eligibility. (Note – for further study – Lourie's dicta that isolation for new purpose is insufficient).
The point of this rehearing was to consider the impact of Mayo on this case. As suggested by the above paragraph, the Judge Lourie's answer here is basically that Mayo has no impact here. Of importance, the court indicated that the holding in Mayo should be limited to method claims and thus cannot be applicable to Myriad's DNA composition claims.
The principal claims of the patents before us on remand relate to isolated DNA molecules. Mayo does not control the question of patent-eligibility of such claims.
This cabining of Mayo will be the key to any petition for a writ of certiorari. To be fair, when considering the Supreme Court's analysis in Mayo v. Prometheus, the CAFC found that precedent applicable to analysis of the method claims. Of course, the CAFC had already held those method claims ineligible even before Mayo (in its prior decision). Interestingly, even though in dissent, Judge Bryson agreed that the "Supreme Court's recent decision in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., 132 S. Ct. 1289, 1293 (2012), does not decide this case." Judge Bryson implicitly agrees that the distinction is based upon claim form – because Mayo "involved method claims." However, he did draw the same analogy that I penned immediately following the Mayo decision – that the discovery of the DNA sequence is the heart of the invention and that the rest of the claim structure is merely window dressing.
In Mayo, which involved method claims, the representative claim involved the steps of administering a drug to a subject, determining a metabolite concentration in the subject's blood, and inferring the need for a change in dosage based on that metabolite concentration. The [Supreme] Court found that the method was not directed to patent-eligible subject matter because it contributed nothing "inventive" to the law of nature that lay at the heart of the claimed invention. . . . In concluding that the claims did not add "enough" to the natural laws, the Court was particularly persuaded by the fact that "the steps of the claimed processes . . . involve well-understood, routine, conventional activity previously engaged in by researchers in the field."
Just as a patent involving a law of nature must have an "inventive concept" that does "significantly more than simply describe . . . natural relations," a patent involving a product of nature should have an inventive concept that involves more than merely incidental changes to the naturally occurring product. In cases such as this one, in which the applicant claims a composition of matter that is nearly identical to a product of nature, it is appropriate to ask whether the applicant has done "enough" to distinguish his alleged invention from the similar product of nature. Has the applicant made an "inventive" contribution to the product of nature? Does the claimed composition involve more than "well-understood, routine, conventional" elements? Here, the answer to those questions is no.
Neither isolation of the naturally occurring material nor the resulting breaking of covalent bonds makes the claimed molecules patentable. We have previously stated that "isolation of interesting compounds is a mainstay of the chemist's art," and that "[i]f it is known how to per-form such an isolation doing so 'is likely the product not of innovation but of ordinary skill and common sense.'" Aventis Pharma Deutschland GmbH v. Lupin, Ltd., 499 F.3d 1293, 1302 (Fed. Cir. 2007). Similarly, the structural changes ancillary to the isolation of the gene do not render these claims patentable. The cleaving of covalent bonds incident to isolation is itself not inventive, and the fact that the cleaved molecules have terminal groups that differ from the naturally occurring nucleotide sequences does nothing to add any inventive character to the claimed molecules. The functional portion of the composition—the nucleotide sequence—remains identical to that of the naturally occurring gene.
The majority suggests that I have "focus[ed] not on the differences between isolated and native DNAs, but on one similarity: their informational content." In light of Mayo, that approach seems appropriate. The informational content of the nucleotide sequences is the critical aspect of these molecules; the terminal groups added to the molecules when the covalent bonds are broken—to which the majority and concurring opinions attribute such significance—are not even mentioned in the claims. The nucleotide sequences of the claimed molecules are the same as the nucleotide sequences found in naturally occurring human genes. In my view, that structural similarity dwarfs the significance of the structural differences between isolated DNA and naturally occurring DNA, especially where the structural differences are merely ancillary to the breaking of covalent bonds, a process that is itself not inventive.
Regardless of your policy perspective on patent eligibility, Judge Bryson's opinion is clearly the most faithful to the Supreme Court's Mayo decision. The only problem is that Judge Bryson ignores other relevant subject matter eligibility cases such as Chakrabarty and Funk Bros. Of course, this highlights a real problem with subject matter eligibility doctrine – the cases do not fit together in any coherent fashion.
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An interesting aspect of Judge Lourie's opinion is his attempt to wash his hands of the public policy results of the decision:
[I]t is important to state what this appeal is not about. It is not about whether individuals suspected of having an increased risk of developing breast cancer are entitled to a second opinion. Nor is it about whether the University of Utah, the owner of the instant patents, or Myriad, the exclusive licensee, has acted improperly in its licensing or enforcement policies with respect to the patents. The question is also not whether is it desirable for one company to hold a patent or license covering a test that may save people's lives, or for other companies to be excluded from the market encompassed by such a patent—that is the basic right provided by a patent, i.e., to exclude others from practicing the patented subject matter. It is also not whether the claims at issue are novel or nonobvious or too broad. Those questions are not before us. It is solely whether the claims to isolated BRCA DNA, to methods for comparing DNA sequences, and to a process for screening potential cancer therapeutics meet the threshold test for patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in light of various Supreme Court holdings, particularly including Mayo.…
Congress is presumed to have been aware of the issue [of gene patents], having enacted a comprehensive patent reform act during the pendency of this case, and it is ultimately for Congress if it wishes to overturn case law and the long practice of the PTO to determine that isolated DNA must be treated differently from other compositions of matter to account for its perceived special function. We therefore reject the district court's unwarranted categorical exclusion of isolated DNA molecules.
In other words, we don't make policy, we just call balls and strikes.
Next Steps: In my estimation, this case is not over. There is a strong possibility of either an en banc rehearing by the full 12-member Federal Circuit and/or a grant of certiorari by the US Supreme Court.
More to come, but for now read the opinion here: /media/docs/2012/08/10-1406.pdf