Revised Chapter 17 of the Manuel of Patent Office Practice
(MOPOP) released on November 10, 2017 includes a number of new
sections including commentary on "Kits and packages"
"Medical diagnostic methods", and "Antibodies -
Utility". All are interesting in their own right. The present
article focuses on the Medical diagnostic methods section and the
four Examples provided therein.
Most interesting is Example 4 but more on that later.
The "new" "Medical diagnostic methods"
section is largely a rehash of the previous Guidance document on
Medical diagnostic methods and incorporates the previous approach
for assessing whether diagnostic methods are patentable subject
matter. As before, the world of diagnostic applications is split
into two camps: the "data acquisition" camp and the
"data analysis" camp. Using a problem solution approach,
the Examiner determines which camp a claim fits. If a claim fits
into the first camp, your claim is likely patentable subject
matter.
