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Patents in an age of innovation

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Medicine is a research-intensive enterprise that relies on patents to fund scientific development and promote innovation. The essential requirements for patentability in the United States are that an invention must be patent-eligible subject matter that is new, nonobvious, useful, and described in sufficient detail to place the invention in the possession of the public. The patent system is emerging from a tumultuous period when many of the basic rules have been changed. A new patent law was introduced in 2013, and recent Supreme Court cases have upended the rules of patenting software inventions, natural products, and some diagnostic methods. However, patents on medical devices, methods of treatment, and pharmaceuticals have been relatively unscathed, and the rules of patenting these and other inventions are reviewed.

New Concepts in Glaucoma Surgery, Vol. 1, pp. 39-54 #2
Edited by John R. Samples and Iqbal Ike K. Ahmed
© Kugler Publications, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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