Law Center Search Results

The Supreme Court 6/22/06 issued a per curiam order dismissing as improvidently granted a petition for certiorari that it previously had limited to the question “[w]hether a method patent . . . directing a party simply to ‘correlate’ test results can validly claim a monopoly over a basic scientific relationship . . . such that any doctor necessarily infringes the patent merely by thinking about the relationship after looking at a test result.” The method patent at issue claims a process for helping to diagnose vitamin deficiencies. Claim 13 of the patent seeks protection for a method comprising the “assaying [of] a body fluid for an elevated level of total homocysteine” and “correlating an elevated level of total homocysteine . . . with a [vitamin] deficiency.” While the summary order does not explain why the Court dismissed certiorari, Justice Breyer’s dissent (joined by Justices Stevens and Souter) notes two reasons why the Court may have chosen not to resolve the question on the merits. First, “[t]here is a technical procedural reason for not doing so, namely, that LabCorp did not refer in the lower courts to § 101 of the Patent Act, which sets forth subject matter that is patentable, and within the bounds of which the ‘laws of nature’ principle most comfortably fits.” Second, “[t]here is also a practical reason for not doing so, namely, that we might benefit from the views of the Federal Circuit, which did not directly consider the question.”

Decision Below: 370 F.3d 1354 (Fed. Cir. 2004)