Stronger Life Science Patents

In recent years, life science patents have grown increasingly vulnerable to rejection and invalidation due to judicial interpretations around the patent law concepts of subject matter eligibility and invention enablement. A retired US Court of Appeals Chief Justice has described the resulting environment as an “illogical, unpredictable, chaotic” mess. The practical implications are staggering. When it comes to eligible subject matter, in the last five years, over 80% of abandoned life science applications had a final rejection from the USPTO stating that the innovation did not include patentable subject matter. As for enablement, case law is now littered with patents whose innovator’s ideas proved to be revolutionary, but whose patent claims ended up invalidated because they failed to demonstrate in their applications how their observations could be practically applied or failed to prove that they deserved the breadth of coverage they sought. In this talk, we’ll help you make sense of the present state of the law, explore how you can avoid these common rejections, and provide some very practical tips for creating stronger, more robust life science patents. Instructor: Dr. Ashley Sloat is a USPTO-registered patent practitioner who specializes in the development and management of patent portfolios for startup ventures and emerging growth companies. She takes a hands-on approach with each client, partnering with Engineering and Management teams to intimately understand each