navigating the patent maze

The Metabolite patent claimed a method for detecting a cobalamin or folate deficiency in a patient by "assaying a body fluid for an elevated level of homocysteine" and "correlating an elevated level … with a deficiency…." 

The issue from Metabolite in front of the U.S. Supreme Court is whether a method patent claim "directing a party simply to ‘correlate’ test results" is validly awarded over "a basic scientific relationship used in medical treatment such that any doctor necessarily infringes the patent merely by thinking about the relationship after looking at a test result."

This case will attract attention not only from the biotechnology industry, but also from the software and business methods industries.  Although the issue to be considered is drawn narrowly and specifically in terms of medical treatments, it actually touches on wider policy controversies.  The main controversy is primarily voiced by the press and public interest groups as the perception that patents are wrongly granted for abstract ideas (e.g., software patents, business method patents) or natural phenomena (e.g., patents to gene sequences and the method of the Metabolite patent). 

The expected date for a decision in this case is June 2006.