The nation’s highest court has agreed to hear a patent violation case brought by a California diagnostic firm against the Mayo Clinic.
In accepting the case, the high court will decide which diagnostic medical tests can be patented. Prometheus Labs is the owner of the patents, which it claimed, were infringed upon by Mayo.
Mayo Clinic is appealing the decision of a federal appeals court which favored Prometheus’s argument that Mayo violated two patents for determining the dosage of medicines to treat stomach diseases when it began selling a test of its own. Mayo previously licensed the tests from Prometheus.
Mayo has argued that the tests cover natural phenomena that cannot be patented, while Prometheus has countered that its tests apply natural laws, but do not constitute the law itself, Bloomberg reported.