Patent Baristas

While the practice of savings seeds after a harvest to plant the next season is as old as farming itself, farmers have found that patent laws count in the end.
In Monsanto v. McFarling (05-1570, -1598), Monsanto went after the farmer for breaching a technology agreement over genetically modified crops that resist glyphosphate herbicide. Upon planting [...]

While attending BIO2007 in Boston on May 6-9 and will be participating as a blogger on-site at BioVoice, the BIO2007 Conference Exhibitor Hall has been jam-packed with events. With 1,900 exhibitors, 60 pavilions and 60 countries available to stop by and visit, it’s difficult to meet with all those you want and to spend enough [...]

Rep. Xavier Becerra from Southern California, and Rep. Dave Weldon of Florida have introduced the Genomic Research and Accessibility Act, a bill that would end the practice of patenting any and all portions of the human genome. They point out that the Human Genome Project has led to the discovery of approximately 35,000 genes and [...]

If you think things are getting more expensive, it may not be your imagination. The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development has announced that the average cost of developing a new biotechnology product is $1.2 billion (yes, that’s with a “B”).
Tufts study said the $1.2 billion estimate reflects the costs of drugs [...]

Decision Resources, Inc., one of the world’s leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, came out with a press release today announcing that that Neurochem’s Alzhemed (tramiprosate) and Myriad Genetics’ Flurizan (R-flurbiprofen) will account for nearly 60% of the market to treat Alzheimer’s disease by 2015. Both drugs have shown promise [...]

GTC Biotherapeutics, a company specializing in the development of therapeutics derived from transgenic animals, has reason to be optimistic. Investing 20 years in the business of developing transgenically derived treatments, the company suffered a recent setback in February when European officials denied approval of a transgenically produced drug. However, the Committee for Medicinal [...]

In Falker-Gunter Falkner et al. v. Inglis et al. (Fed. Cir. 2006, 05-1324), on appeal from the USPTO Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit set out some guidelines on the adequacy of written description and enablement in biotech cases. The Federal Circuit held that:

(1) examples [...]

The Boston Globe recently ran an article that nanotechnology is about to be the next big thing in bioscience. Although nanotechnology has had a lot of ups and downs in its enthusiam in the marketplace, it’s still remains mostly a laboratory study subject. Now, nanotech seems staged to make huge leaps in medical [...]