ELLIOTT GREENLEAF AND THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION HOST PATENT LAW ROUNDTABLE ON "ARE GENES PATENTABLE?"
On January 29, 2010, Elliott Greenleaf , in conjunction with the Intellectual Property Litigation Committee of the ABA Section of Litigation ("ABA-IPL") , hosted a patent law roundtable in the Firm's Wilmington office on "Are Genes Patentable?" The roundtable was moderated by Kenneth (Ken) L. Dorsney, head of the Intellectual Property Department of Elliott Greenleaf's Delaware office. Rafael X. Zahralddin-Aravena, the managing shareholder of the Delaware office, opened the debate about the patenting of human genes in light of a recent lawsuit , Association for Molecular Pathology, et al. v. United States Patent and Trademark Office, et al., No. 09-Civ-4515 (S.D.N.Y.), which asserts that several patents on two human genes (BRCA1 and BRCA2) associated with breast and ovarian cancer are unconstitutional and invalid.
Attendees at the event included the Director of the Science, Ethics, and Public Policy Program at the University of Delaware who is also part of the Delaware Biotechnology Institute, ; a forensic toxicologist ; licensed lab director; and Chairman of the Board of Directors at NMS Labs, a private forensic science laboratory in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania; patent litigators and prosecutors; an intellectual property economist, a registered nurse, members of the Delaware Manufacturing Extension Partnership, law students, and local attorneys and professionals.
Elliott Greenleaf has been asked to host future patent law roundtables in Wilmington in conjunction with the ABA-IPL and to participate in a biotechnology conference on the patentability of human genes being hosted by the University of Delaware at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute in late April or early May of 2010. For further information, please contact Ken or Rafael at kld@elliottgreenleaf.com or rxza@elliottgreenleaf.com, respectively.
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