BioCentury
ARTICLE | Politics, Policy & Law

101 problems with patent eligibility

Why diagnostic innovation needs Congress to fix patent law’s Section 101

January 25, 2019 11:40 PM UTC

The U.S. diagnostics industry is being strangled, and other life science inventions are being hobbled by, ill-conceived and contradictory patent policies. The USPTO director has signaled he wants to help, but only Congress has the power to fix the problem.

Compounding Congress’ slow pace are conflicts between the interests of the tech and biotech industries, which differ on how wide the boundaries of patentable subject matter should be...