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

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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].