Natera, Sequenom, Thermo Fisher, Roche diagnostic news

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a lower court decision invalidating U.S. Patent No. 6,258,540 covering prenatal diagnosis with nucleic acid analysis used in Sequenom’s MaterniT21 Plus laboratory-developed test. Sequenom had asked SCOTUS to review the case and the patent eligibility criteria established in the court’s 2012 decision in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories Inc., which the appeals court used as rationale to invalidate Sequenom’s patent. Sequenom said it “will pursue no further appeal opportunities for review of the ‘540 Patent”

In 2013, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled the patent invalid because its claims did not add enough to a natural phenomenon to make them patent eligible. Last year, the U.S Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the district court decision, citing the Mayo decision in its ruling. ...