McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP partner Dr. Kevin E. Noonan authored an article entitled, “Patent Docs: Patent Office guidelines implementing Myriad decision cause concern” that appears in the May 9, 2014 online edition of DDNEWS. Last month, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued its interpretation of the standards for subject matter eligibility set forth in the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Mayo v. Prometheus and AMP v. Myriad. The guidelines comprise a wealth of flow charts, factors and factual inquiries an examiner should make in determining whether a “product of nature” has been sufficiently changed by human intervention to be patent eligible. The guidelines are much broader in their determination of what is patent ineligible than was mandated by the Supreme Court’s Myriad decision (which was limited to genomic DNA, albeit in a decision containing sufficient dicta that almost any interpretation is possible). View the article