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Biotech / Medical : Biotech Valuation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Biomaven who wrote (8023)	3/13/2003 6:53:01 PM
From: keokalani'nui	Respond to of 52153

Thanks Peter. What a nice summary of the decision right up front. No wonder the press was able to cite it freely. Patent law often involves subject matter and legal principles that can be both complex and arcane. But there are some basic principles that should be evident even to the lay person. An “inventor” or patentee is entitled to a patent to protect his work but only if he produces or has possession of something truly new and novel. The “invention” he claims must be sufficiently concrete so that it can be described for the world to appreciate the specific nature of the work that sets it apart from what was before. The inventor must be able to describe the item to be patented with such clarity that the reader is assured that the inventor actually has possession and knowledge of the unique composition that makes it worthy of patent protection. The patent at issue here does not do that. What the reader learns from this patent is a wish or plan or first step for obtaining a desired result. What he appreciates is that the patentee had a goal for achieving a certain end result. The reader can certainly appreciate the goal but establishing goals does not a patent make. The reader also learns that the patentee had not proceeded to do what was necessary to accomplish the desired end. In my view, such an “invention” is not really one at all. As the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit stated in a case involving similar issues, an inadequate patent description that merely identifies a plan to accomplish an intended result “is an attempt to preempt the future before it has arrived.” Fiers v. Revel, 984 F.2d 1164, 1171 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Such a patent fails to comply with the requirements of the federal statutes concerning issuance of patents and, therefore, must be held invalid.