On June 14, a unanimous Supreme Court decision in Ass'n for Mol. Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., held that Myriad's claims directed to "… a naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated." 569 U.S. ___ (2013), Slip Op. at 18. In addition, the court held that "… cDNA is patent eligible because it is not naturally occurring."
What remains unclear is the reach of the Myriad holding to other patented inventions that also rely on "isolation" as the basis for patent eligibility. A number of useful and commercially-valuable therapeutics are isolated forms of naturally-occurring products, such as proteins (e.g., fully-human monoclonal antibodies). Following Myriad, the validity of claims directed to such isolated products may soon be called into question in U.S. courts or by examiners at the U.S. patent office.
