The Patent Law Cure
Nearly twenty percent of the more than 23,000 genes in the human body are used in process to detect diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, asthma, some cancers, and muscular dystrophy. Some processes to detect these genes, to screen diseases, are patented. Patients can receive personalized treatments based on results, but sometimes at enormous cost. Recently, some cases have raised the question of whether companies should have the right to patent genes because their discovery represents basic human knowledge rather than the creation of new processes that causes a transformation of something into a different state. Especially in light of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s decision in In re Bilski, which gutted a decade of the court’s own precedents in patent law related to processes, the ground appears to be shifting in this area of the law.
While the law of patents on processes can have an influence on many areas including financial instruments and software development, there has been a central focus on health law because of the myriad issues raised for patents on human genes. How the law has changed and in what direction it might be going will have tremendous impact on scientific research, medical treatments for individuals, and patient costs for treatments. Register for this program to keep up-to-date on this area of patent law.
Faculty Members:
Gordon T. Arnold
Shawnmarie Mayrand-Chung
David S. Resnick
Duration: 60 minutes, 56 seconds
Credit Hours: 1.0 Hours in a 60-Minute State, 1.2 Hours in a 50-Minute State
Recorded from a live program on July 15, 2009
MCLE credit is subject to each state's regulations. Some states do not approve online courses for MCLE credit or do not approve online courses for specialty credit such as ethics credit or have specific rules regarding who may earn credit or the maximum number of credit hours that may be earned through online CLE. Please contact your state if you have any questions.
