Federal Circuit refuses to review Dolly the sheep ruling

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has refused to grant an en banc review of its ruling that cloned animals made by methods that produced Dolly the sheep cannot be patented, according to Law360.

In May, the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision by the US Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), finding that while the method for creating a genetic clone can be patent protected, the clones themselves may not, as they do not have “markedly different characteristics from any found in nature”.

The patent examiner had rejected claims in the patent in 2008, finding them to be “anticipated and obvious”, which the PTAB later affirmed.

The named assignee of the patent application at suit, the Edinburgh-based Roslin Institute, said that it was not in a position to comment.