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ARTICLE · 01 JULY 2014

Dolly Was A "Natural Phenomenon"

After obtaining a patent on the breakthrough cloning method used to create Dolly, Roslin sought to obtain a patent for claims directed to the products of that method.

United StatesIntellectual Property

In re Roslin Institute (Edinburgh)

Addressing patent eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the decision of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) finding that claims covering Dolly the sheep involved "product of nature or natural phenomenon" and therefore were not patent eligible.  In re Roslin Institute (Edinburgh), Case No. 13-1407 (Fed. Cir., May 8, 2014) (Dyk, J.)

After obtaining a patent on the breakthrough cloning method of somatic cell nuclear transfer, which was used to create Dolly, Roslin sought to obtain a patent for claims directed to the products of that cloning method.  Roslin's representative product claim reads as follows:

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