Deconstructing MDx Patents

Three upcoming court cases could render many molecular diagnostic patent claims moot, while narrowing the scope of claims inventors may seek in the future. While some MDx players and academic institutions worry that investors will shy away from the space if that happens, others suggest the result could be incentives to continuously improve diagnostic processes and services and a more competitive landscape.

Math-based method patents have been under attack for decades, but until recently, similar types of correlation-based medical process patents had been largely immune. Those days are clearly over as litigation partially rooted in abstract mathematical processes threaten to shake up the personalized medicine industry...