Neural Stem Cell Patent
Stem Cells Inc. has announced that they have been granted a U.S. patent for neural stem cells. PHOSITA has a comprehensive post about it.
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When you have found a patent document of interest and want to know in which other countries it may have been filed or granted, the information is not always that easy to come by. Short of searching individual patent office databases (assuming that the patent office has one on the internet and in a language you understand), most searchers use the INPADOC database.
INPADOC collates information from over 70 patent offices around the world. The information is mainly bibliometric (e.g., name of inventor, name of assignee or applicant, priority documents, file number), but legal information (e.g., has the patent gone abandoned) is provided from some about 40 of the patent offices.
Until now, there have been very few free or low-cost sites for obtaining the information. And even the pay sites typically do a very poor job at displaying the information in a form that can be comprehended. Now however, there are two free sites, and both do a credible job at display. Check them out:
IP Newsflash: search page. This site is easier to negotiate.
National Informatics Centre in India: search page.
Claim Interpretation: What is a claim “preamble” and is it important to claim meaning?
A claim preamble is the introduction to the claim. It can be identified as the part of the claim occurring before the word “comprising”, “consisting of”, “consisting essentially of”, “having”, or other such words.
For example, ithe preamble in the following claim (from U.S. Patent No: 5,612,179) is in italics:
A method for detection of at least one coding region allele of a multi-allelic genetic locus comprising:
(a) amplifying genomic DNA with a primer pair that spans a non-coding region sequence, said primer pair defining a DNA sequence which is in genetic linkage with said genetic locus and contains a sufficient number of non-coding region sequence nucleotides to produce an amplified DNA sequence characteristic of said allele; and
(b) analyzing the amplified DNA sequence to detect the allele.
What is its significance?
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And they say that some Biotech patents are too broad….
All too often, accusations are slung at the U.S. Patent Office for issuing patents that are too broad, especially in biotechnology and software. Yet, the mechanical arts also suffer at times from ridiculous patent claims. Take a look at U.S. Patent 6360693, titled “Animal Toy”. If you click on the patent image, a larger version will appear.