Intellectual Property Litigators Co-Author Bloomberg BNA Article Comparing Medical Diagnostic Patent Eligibility in the U.S. and Europe

Intellectual property litigation partner Kevin Post and IP litigation associate Cassandra Roth (both of New York) co-authored a June article in Bloomberg BNA’s World Intellectual Property Report comparing medical diagnostic patent eligibility approaches in the U.S. and European Patent Offices.

The co-authors explain that to encourage discovery, the U.S. regime excludes inventions directed to certain judicially identified categories. But even with recent court decisions providing encouraging developments, U.S. innovators still face uncertainty over how such a patent eligibility analysis will be applied to medical diagnostics innovations in district court and at the Patent Office. In contrast, the European regime remains driven by medical practitioners’ patient treatment needs and has been interpreted narrowly and remains static.

As a result, the co-authors suggest that innovators seeking patent protection need to keep both regimes in mind, seeking common ground for cross-border patent protection.