Imagine a world of great biotechnological promise where the hope of preventative, diagnostic and treatment medicine to illness and disease is more of a reality than ever before. Further, imagine that this world has, in hand, a map of the entire human genome with bits of DNA no longer lying in wait for discovery but [...]

Posted in Access to Medicines, Patent Practice, Patentability, Patents
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On March 20, 2012, the United States Supreme Court decided Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., 132 S. Ct. 1289 (U.S. 2012). The case was unanimous and emphatically reaffirmed that United States patent law does not allow ownership of “laws of nature.” The context was a pair of patents owned by Prometheus which claimed [...]

Posted in IP, Jurisdiction, Patent Practice, Patentability, Patents, US
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This Wednesday, April 18, Pfizer will defend the patent protecting the little blue pill that has changed the lives of men and women around the world.  The pill is of course Viagra and the assailant is Teva, a generic pharmaceutical company.  Teva applied for a Notice of Compliance in order to market a generic version [...]

Posted in Patent Practice, Patents, Pharmaceutical Drugs
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  I am pleased to join you from south of the border. My work has been focussed in the United States. Intellectual property laws are very powerful and important today. Yet they are but part of the larger body of law in any country. They are also part of a developing fabric of international commercial [...]

Posted in Feature Post, IP, Jurisdiction, Patent Practice, Patentability, Patents, US
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