Patents for Diagnosing Cardiovascular Disease Invalid Under 35 U.S.C. § 101

After the Federal Circuit found the parent patent to the patents-in-suit invalid, the court granted defendant's motion to dismiss because the asserted claims of plaintiffs’ cardiovascular disease diagnosis patent encompassed unpatentable subject matter and found that the claims were directed toward a law of nature. "According to plaintiffs . . . because the [patents] merely claim a laboratory method of 'detecting' [myeloperoxidase] activity, as opposed to a diagnostic method, they are not directed to patent ineligible subject matter. Plaintiffs' argument is overly superficial. . . . It is not a general laboratory technique for detecting MPO levels. Because the method is directed at detecting the correlation that is the natural law, rather than MPO levels generally, it is clear that the method is directed to the natural law. Accepting plaintiffs' argument to the contrary would permit artful drafters to recast any diagnostic patent as a laboratory method patent, frustrating the purpose of the natural law exception."

The Cleveland Clinic Foundation et al v. True Health Diagnostics LLC, 1-17-cv-00198 (VAED August 4, 2017, Order) (Brinkema, USDJ)