Current stable precedents keeps patent controversies out of the Supreme Court

Supreme Court refuses to grant certiorari in Cleveland Clinic Section 101 dispute – The United States Supreme Court decided not to address the way lower courts are applying criteria for patent subject eligibility, denying certiorari in Cleveland Clinic Foundation v. True Health Diagnostics. The Cleveland Clinic’s petition asked the court to review the 2017 decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to invalidate three of its patents relating to methods for testing for arterial damage and methods for treating patients with cardiovascular disease. Having applied the two-step Alice/Mayo test for determining patent subject eligibility under Section 101 of the Patent Act, the CAFC deemed the patents’ claims to be directed towards laws of nature and therefore unpatentable. The Supreme Court was asked to consider whether its Mayo decision authorises a district court to invalidate patents on the pleadings when there are disputed questions of fact, a disputed question of claim construction or scope, and/or an undeveloped evidentiary record; and whether the Federal Circuit erred in ruling that that a method involving natural phenomena is ineligible for patent protection if it claims known techniques that have been adapted for a new use and purpose not previously known in the art. Life sciences innovators, hoping for more clarity around the eligibility of method-of-treatment claims, will be disappointed with the Supreme Court's decision not to hear the case.