BIO looks past its human utility success

WASHINGTON - The Biotechnology Industry Organization, anticipating victory in its campaign to induce the Patent and Trademark Office to change its policy on human utility, will meet in January to review its options dealing with the issue of patent term extension.

Patent Commissioner Bruce Lehman last week signaled the success of the BIO's campaign on utility when he told BioCentury that the patent office was completing work on a set of guidelines that would instruct patent examiners to accept in vitro and animal data in support of claims of utility in humans (see BioCentury Extra, Dec. 14). ...