1、CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress Legal SidebarLegal Sidebari i Judges Urge Congress to Revise What Can Be Patented Updated March 23, 2020 UPDATE (March 23, 2020): On January 13, 2020, the Supreme Court denied the petition for a writ of certiorari in Athena Diagnostic
2、s, Inc. v. Mayo Collaborative Services. Accordingly, the Supreme Court will not review the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The original post on Athena, from August 26, 2019, is reproduced below. What can be patented? A series of Supreme Court decisions beginning nearly
3、 a decade ago catapulted that question to the forefront of patent law. Since then the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit)the only federal appeals court that hears patent law appealshas issued a number of decisions limiting patent eligibility. Some stakeholders, however, v
4、iew the current law as discouraging important innovations like medical diagnostic tests. One commenter has lamented that “thanks to the Supreme Court the most exciting scientific discoveries, technological advances, and innovations of the twenty-first century are no longer patent eligible in America