An inventor faces a number of significant hurdles and pitfalls
in patenting his invention. Having a patent specification providing
proper and sufficiently thorough disclosure of the invention being
claimed by the patentee can, by itself, be a large hurdle,
especially in the biosciences where experimental data is essential.
Section 112, first paragraph, of Title 35 of the United States Code
sets forth the disclosure requirements that all patentees must
meet. This section is commonly interpreted as requiring that a
patent specification contain a full written description showing
that the inventor was in possession of the claimed invention at the
time the patent application was filed (the "written
description" requirement) and that a patent specification
enable a person of ordinary skill in the relevant field to make and
use the invention based on the specification (the
"enablement" requirement). See Ariad Pharmaceuticals,
Inc. v. Eli Lilly and Company, 598 F.3d 1336, 1340
