disembodied embodiments: medical device strategy for pct and foreign applications bruce d. sunstein...
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Disembodied Embodiments: Medical Device Strategy for
PCT and Foreign Applications
Bruce D. SunsteinSunstein Kann Murphy & Timbers LLP
Boston
www.sunsteinlaw.com©2011 Sunstein Kann Murphy & Timbers LLP
The problem: how to protect new medical technology?
Sometimes device protection for new medical devices may be viewed for one reason or another as insufficient.Consider technology where novelty resides in pore size of a filter for blood of the patient.
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The technology
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How about a method claim?
Let’s try.
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12. A method of removing target molecules from a patient’s blood, comprising:
circulating a stream of the patient’s blood through a very large pore hemofilter having a nominal molecular weight cutoff greater than 150,000 Daltons to sieve the target molecules from the blood stream and the nominal molecular weight cutoff less than 1,000,000 Daltons to avoid removal of significant amounts of immunoglobulin and similar large molecules to prevent increasing the risk of opportunistic infection; ….
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Is anything wrong with this claim structure
… in the United States Patent and Trademark Office?
No.
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Is anything wrong with this claim structure
… in the European Patent Office?
… The EPO action:
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Claim 12 is directed to a method for treatment of the human or animal body by therapy, which cannot be allowed under Art. 53(c) of the European Patent Convention.
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53. European patents shall not be granted in respect of: …(c) methods for treatment of the human or animal body by surgery or therapy and diagnostic methods practised on the human or animal body; this provision shall not apply to products, in particular substances or compositions, for use in any of these methods.
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European Patent Convention, Article 53(c):
In other words, a rejection.
What to do?
The apparatus performs a new method, but the method claim does not define patent-eligible subject matter.
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What has destroyed patent eligibility in the EPO?
The human body.
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What if we eliminate that which has destroyed patent eligibility?
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We did not mean this:
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What we really meant is this:
For which, a new set of “disembodied” claims.
A method for removing one or more toxic substances from blood previously withdrawn from a patient, characterized in that the method comprises:
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Body of the disembodied claims:
delivering the blood to a hemofilter having a molecular weight cutoff of greater thant 150,000 Daltons and less than 1,000,000 Daltons so as to create a return stream and an ultrafiltrate stream;
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More of the body of the claims:
transferring at least a portion of the ultrafiltrate stream;providing the return stream for subsequent return to a patient; andproviding a fluid, containing target receptor molecules not contaminated with or bound with target molecules, for subsequent provision to a patient.
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The EPO action on our new claim
The objection under Art. 53(c) EPC raised against former claims 12 to 15 which have been replaced by claims 1 to 12 presently on file is maintained, since claim 1 represents a medical method of treatment of the human or animal body by therapy although the applicant tries to hide the real nature of the method claimed by removing some features from claim 17 as published and claim 12 filed on 17.10.2005.
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Was the rejection correct?
The wording “although the applicant tries to hide the real nature of the method claimed,” suggests that presenting the claim the first time around in the new language might have been successful.Is an examiner entitled to divine “the real nature of the method claimed”?
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What if we claimed a slightly different way?
A method for removing one or more toxic substances from blood from a blood source, characterized in that the method comprises:
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Use a body similar to the other disembodied claims:
delivering the blood from the source to a hemofilter having a molecular weight cutoff of greater thant 150,000 Daltons and less than 1,000,000 Daltons so as to create a return stream and an ultrafiltrate stream;
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More of the body of the second disembodied claims:
transferring at least a portion of the ultrafiltrate stream;providing the return stream for subsequent return to the blood source; andproviding a fluid, containing target receptor molecules not contaminated with or bound with target molecules, for subsequent provision to the blood source.
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How would these claims fare?
No definitive answer.Successor counsel withdrew the objected to claims.But wouldn’t these claims have a better chance if framed this way in the first place?
Where does this approach make a difference?
For any application that will be filed outside of the US.Hence PCT applications as well as EPO applications.
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The strategy:
Find a way of eliminating the patient from the claims and from the figures.Preferably, construct the application from the ground up in in advance instead of hoping you can amend it after the PCT or EPO application has already been filed.
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Thanks to
Clive Froud, who developed the claim strategy, http://www.cfroud.co.uk Colleagues at Sunstein Kann Murphy & Timbers LLP: Tim Murphy, co-chair of our patent practice group, and Rob Hess, Ph.D.
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