Australia reigns supreme over the US in patenting diagnostic methods

In July 1969, as a young boy, I watched in awe, along with the rest of world, as the United States of America put two men on the moon. Years later in 2011, the then Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, stood before US Congress and recalled the same moon-landing memory and with acquiescence wept that "Americans could do anything!" Today, the US seems to have entered, what was once described in an episode of Seinfeld as, "Bizzaro world" – Donald Trump is in the White house and, even more astonishingly, researchers are unable to protect what have been described judicially as "truly meritorious" and "ground breaking" innovations in the diagnostics and personal medicine space. Today it is Australia that reigns supreme over the US, as the Federal Court in Sequenom, Inc. v Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. [2019] FCA 1011 (27 June 2019) confirmed that a non-invasive method of detecting fetal characteristics and abnormalities is patent eligible subject matter in Australia!