Exact Genetic Copies Of Patent Ineligible Subject Matter Are Also Patent Ineligible

In In re Roslin Institute (Edinburgh), No. 13-1407 (Fed. Cir. May 8, 2014), the Federal Circuit affirmed the Board's rejection of all pending claims of U.S. Patent Application No. 09/225,233 ("the '233 application") as unpatentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

Keith Henry Stockman Campbell ("Campbell") and Ian Wilmut ("Wilmut") of the Roslin Institute of Edinburgh, Scotland ("Roslin"), successfully produced the first mammal ever cloned from an adult somatic cell: Dolly the Sheep. Campbell and Wilmut produced Dolly using a breakthrough cloning method known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, which involves removing the nucleus of a somatic cell and implanting that nucleus into an enucleated oocyte. If implantation occurs at a certain stage, the resulting fused cell will develop into an embryo, and ultimately a baby animal, which is an exact genetic replica of the adult mammal from which the somatic cell nucleus was taken. Roslin is the assignee of the '233 application, which claims not the cloning method, but rather the cattle, sheep...