Will Supreme Court settle R&D patent controversy?

Mark Baron

1/01/2005
(Original Publish Date: 8/9/2004)

Research and development often go together like peanut butter and jelly. An issue of critical importance in the patent world, however, has pitted academic and research institutes against the business development side of biopharmaceutical companies, and the issue may soon be in the hands of the Supreme Court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) recently denied a petition to rehear the decision of University of Rochester v. G.D. Searle Co. The University of Rochester will most certainly petition the Supreme Court to hear the case but ultimately is likely to fail to convince the justices that it had sufficiently described its invention. The importance of the case to the business and legal community is whether a uniform standard for interpretation of the statutory requirements of patentability can be established.