In this decision from 1983, the New Zealand Court of Appeal considered methods of treatment of humans to not constitute patentable inventions.
On 1 April 2013, the Supreme Court of India confirmed the rejection by the Indian Patent Office of a patent application filed by Swiss drug maker Novartis on the anti-cancer medicament “Glivec”. The Supreme Court considered that Glivec did not qualify as a patentable “invention” under Section 3 (d) of the Indian Patents Act.
The Supreme Court of the United States decided that:
The Enlarged Board of Appeal decided on the 5th December 1984 on the question of novelty and second medical indications. It held that a patent must not be granted for claims directed to the use of a substance or composition for the treatment of the human or animal body by therapy. However, a patent may be granted with claims directed to the use of a substance or composition for the manufacture of a medicament for a specified new and inventive therapeutic application (“Swiss claim”).
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a decision by the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals to grant a patent on a process using an abstract formula. It therewith held that an invention in the form of a process including an as such not patentable element is patent-eligible if it meets the requirements of patentability as a whole.
On 17 March 1980, the United States Supreme Court confirmed the decision of the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals to grant a patent for a bacterium capable of breaking down crude oil (Pseudomonas putida). The Supreme Court therewith established that whether or not an invention is a living thing is irrelevant to the question of its patentability.
The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed on 28 June 2010 the rejection by the Federal Circuit of a patent application concerning a claimed invention which explains a hedging and investment strategy in an energy market. It held that the abstract strategy was not patentable subject matter.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided on 13 June 2013 unanimously that isolated naturally occurring genes are not patent eligible subject matter. Synthetically created composite DNA, however, is patent eligible.
In this decision, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled on the patent eligibility of a claim concerning a natural phenomenon. To evaluate the patentability, the Court utilized the criteria developed in previous case law to determine a) whether the claim is directed to a natural process/phenomenon; b) if so, whether the claim contains an eligible subject matter that can transform the claim itself into a patent eligible one.