WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Myriad Genetics Inc. (MYGN), a molecular diagnostic company, said Thursday that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld its patent claims on complementary DNA, or cDNA. However, the Court ruled that five of Myriad's claims covering isolated DNA were not patent eligible.
Following the announcement, shares of Myriad gained about 8 percent in afternoon trade on the Nasdaq.
With today's Court decision, Myriad has more than 500 valid and enforceable claims in 24 different patents conferring strong patent protection for its BRACAnalysis(R) test.
Importantly, the Court noted that many of Myriad's unchallenged claims are method claims applying knowledge about the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes. While these method claims were not at issue in this case, the Court highlighted Federal Circuit Judge Bryson's opinion that, '[a]s the first party with knowledge of the [BRCA1 and BRCA2] sequences, Myriad was in an excellent position to claim applications to that knowledge.'
'We believe the Court appropriately upheld our claims on cDNA, and underscored the patent eligibility of our method claims, ensuring strong intellectual property protection for our BRACAnalysis test moving forward,' said Peter Meldrum, president and CEO.
BRACAnalysis is the leading genetic test worldwide to determine if a patient has an increased risk of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer and has been used by more than a million women to assess their risk of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer.
The case is the Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics.
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