U.S. Supreme Court Decision Boosts Stem Cell Patent Challenge, Consumer Groups Say

    SANTA MONICA, Calif., May 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A U.S. Supreme
Court decision in favor of KSR International Corp. on Monday strengthens
challenges against overreaching human embryonic stem cell patents held by
an affiliate of the University of Wisconsin, the Foundation for Taxpayer
and Consumer Rights (FTCR) and the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) said
today.
    The patents, held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF),
were challenged by FTCR and PUBPAT on the grounds that they were "obvious"
in light of previous scientific work. In March the Patent Office agreed
with the challengers and rejected all of the patents' claims. WARF has two
months to respond.
    In Monday's unanimous decision the justices ruled that the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Federal circuit, which oversees patent law, had been too
generous to patent holders. It said it had allowed patent holders to claim
patents for incremental advances that were in fact obvious.
    The justices ruled that the circuit court was too narrow in its
definition of "obvious." Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, "Granting patent
protection to advances that would occur in the ordinary course without real
innovation retards progress."
    "We believed that what James Thomson did to develop stem cell lines was
obvious in the light of prior scientific work when we first filed our
complaint," said John M. Simpson, FTCR Stem Cell Project Director. "Now,
the Supreme Court decision only strengthens our position."
    "The decision eliminates some of the formal requirements imposed by the
lower courts for proving patents are obvious," said Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT
executive director. "It says that combining previously known things will
generally be obvious and thus no patent is deserved."
    The WARF stem cell patents do nothing but combine previously isolated
stem cells and known techniques to cultivate animal cells, Ravicher noted,
and thus the Supreme Court decision will have direct applicability to the
FTCR and PUBPAT patent challenges.
    Thomson's work was an important contribution to science, Simpson said,
just not patentable. Simpson said the best thing for WARF would be to
accept the PTO's initial findings and move on. "It would save them some
money and gain them respect in the scientific community," he said.
    The patent challenges were filed last July by FTCR and PUBPAT because
the three WARF patents were impeding scientific progress and driving vital
stem cell research overseas. FTCR and PUBPAT argued that the work done by
University of Wisconsin researcher Thomson to isolate stem cell lines was
obvious in the light of previous scientific research, making his work
unpatentable. Dr. Jeanne Loring of the Burnham Institute for Medical
Research filed a statement supporting the challenge. To receive a patent,
something must be new, useful and non-obvious. The PTO agreed with the
groups.
    In the face of the challenges by FTCR and PUBPAT, WARF announced in
January that it would ease its licensing requirements on human embryonic
stem cells. The groups said the patents' dubious validity is underscored by
the fact that no other country in the world honors them.
    The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights is California's leading
non-profit and non-partisan consumer watchdog group. For more information
visit us on the web at: http://www.ConsumerWatchdog.org. Our stem cell
information page is located at: http://www.StemCellWatch.org.
    The Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) is a not-for-profit legal
services organization that represents the public's interests against the
harms caused by the patent system, particularly the harms caused by
undeserved patents and unsound patent policy. For more information, visit
the web at: http://www.pubpat.org.

SOURCE Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights

Related links:

http://www.ConsumerWatchdog.org

http://www.StemCellWatch.org

http://www.pubpat.org