A decision was issued on July 6, 2016 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in Rapid Litigation Management LTD v. Cellzdirect, Inc. The dispute came to the CAFC on appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Rapid Litigation Management, owner of the patent, appealed the District Court’s decision, which concluded on summary judgement, that U.S. Patent No. 7,604,929 claims were ineligible because they were directed to a law of nature.
Chief Judge Prost of the CAFC, joined by Judge Moore and Judge Stoll, found that the patent claims in question were not directed to patent-ineligible subject matter. The Court vacated the District Court’s ruling and remanded the case back to the District Court. Prost stated “no one could ever get a patent on cryopreservation, or on any other innovative method that acts on something that is naturally occurring,” Bob Stoll, former Commissioner for Patents at the United States Patent and Trademark Office said “This is very heartening since the Supreme Court denied cert in Sequenom. It is great to see the CAFC apply the Supreme Court decisions more narrowly, as intended by that Court, and provide some relief to innovators that will help them to attract funding to develop their inventions.”
This decision could mark a significant change to innovators in the life sciences field. Prior to this ruling the CAFC had seemed hesitant to read the Supreme Court’s precedent in Mayo v. Prometheus and AMP v. Myriad Genetics. It is likely that the CAFC was looking to the Supreme Court to clarify the broad and expansive language of Mayo v. Prometheus and AMP v. Myriad Genetics.
