USPTO’s ”Guidance Laws of Nature, Natural Phenomena, and Natural Products”


Stakeholders have been critical of the  USPTO’s Guidance For Determining Subject Matter Eligibility Of Claims Reciting Or Involving Laws of Nature, Natural Phenomena, and Natural Products because it requires a product to be markedly different in structure from a product of nature in order to be eligible for patenting, even though the Supreme Court has considered both structure and function when evaluating the eligibility of a product derived from nature.

USPTO officials confessed their difficulty in understanding that a product could have a different function without having a different structure, and is asking the public to provide examples of such cases by the July 31, 2014 public comment deadline. Please provide your examples of where the function of a compound depends on the context?

Submit Your Examples by July 31

Please help the USPTO understand this important principle by submitting examples of how a compound can exhibit a different function without having a different structure in written comments by July 31, 2014, by email to [email protected].