USPTO to Clarify Guidance on Written Description of Antibodies

The Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy at the USPTO, Robert W. Bahr, recently issued a memorandum to clarify the applicability of the Office’s written description requirement guidance for claims drawn to antibodies.  The memorandum is a result of the Federal Circuit’s decision in Amgen v. Sanofi, 872 F.3d 1367 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (“Amgen”), in which written description requirement for antibody claims was one of the issues scrutinized by the Court.  As discussed in detail in a post on this website last November, in Amgen the Court found that the USPTO’s written description requirement guidance concerning antibodies was not adequate.

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