Is NF enough?

Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc. and its trio of academic licensors last week emerged victorious in the first round of their patent infringement suit against Eli Lilly and Co. If the verdict by a U.S. District Court jury holds up on appeal, it could signal a swing in the ability of academia and industry to obtain patents covering extremely broad swaths of biology.

But ‘if’ is the key word, as several biotech patent attorneys told BioCentury that the claims in ARIA’s U.S. Patent No. 6,410,516 covering methods of treating human disease by regulating NF-kappa B cell signaling are unlikely to be upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit...