Ariosa v Sequenom: keeping the Mayo test in place

On June 27, the US Supreme Court denied a request to revisit the question of patent eligibility for inventions that apply known techniques to newly discovered natural phenomena in Sequenom v. Ariosa Diagnostics. In light of the denial, the high court’s test for patent eligibility will remain unaltered from its 2012 decision in Mayo v Prometheus. The decision to deny certiorari leaves the patent eligibilty of many life sciences-related patent claims, and in particular, those directed to diagnostic tools, in jeopardy, even if they “combine[] and utilize[] man-made tools of biotechnology in a new way that revolutionize[s]” the field (Ariosa).

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