PATENT LAW
Authority of decisions of the Technical Boards of Appeal
• We follow any principle of law clearly laid down by them, only reserving the right to differ if we are sure that the commodore is steering the fleet on to the rocks
• No deference to findings or evaluations of fact by the TBA
Industrial Application of gene sequences
• you can patent an isolated gene sequence but only if you disclose the industrial application of the protein for which it encodes. However clever and inventive you may have been in discovering a gene sequence, you cannot have a patent for it or for the protein for which it encodes if you do not disclose how it can be used.
Propositions for industrial application
• Kitchin J reviewed these and other authorities and drew from them a series of propositions
Members of TNF-ligand superfamily not “capable of industrial application”.
• No plausible (at least in the sense of reasonably credible) use for any member of the superfamily.
• It is all too speculative to say, on the basis of the information in the patent and common general knowledge that a newly found member of the super-family is “capable of industrial application.”
IPPT20100209, Court of Appeal, London, Eli Lilly v Human Genome Sciences
