Addressing the issue of patent eligibility under §101, the
US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a district
court, explaining that the method of preparation claims at issue
are not directed to a patent-ineligible natural phenomenon.
Illumina, Inc. v. Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc., Case No.
19-1419 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 17, 2020) (Lourie, J.) (Reyna, J.,
dissenting).
The patents at issue are directed to methods of preparing a
fraction of cell-free DNA that is enriched in fetal DNA to solve
the identified problem of distinguishing and separating the tiny
amount of fetal DNA from the vast amount of maternal DNA in the
mother's blood. The solution to this problem was based on the
inventors' discovery that fetal DNA has a relatively small size
of approximately 500 base pairs or less, while the majority of
maternal DNA has a size greater than approximately 500 base
pairs.
