Claim Scope And Biological Deposits

The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board recently issued a post-grant review decision, denying a post-grant review challenge to U.S. Patent No. 11,696,545 submitted by Inari Agriculture, Inc. against the patent owner Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc. The Board ruled that because the claims cited representative seeds deposited at the National Center for Marine Algae and Microbiota (NCMA), the claim scope encompasses both the plant variety's phenotype and genotype, even though the genotype is not explicitly recited in the claims. Thus, the post-grant review challenge was denied because the Board agreed with Patent Owner's arguments that the claimed material was properly enabled by the specification and was also nonobvious. This decision raises more questions than it answers regarding claim construction.