Mayo’s impact on patent applications related to biotechnology, diagnostics and personalized medicine

On the sixth year anniversary of Mayo (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-1150.pdf), our empirical study examines the impact of the US Supreme Court decision on patent subject-matter eligibility, patent examination and patent prosecution of biotech related patent applications before the USPTO. To answer our research questions, we developed an empirical methodology designed to elucidate Mayo’s impact on patent applications across a full technology center, TC 1600, which relates to Biotechnology & Organic Chemistry, as well as the narrower Art Unit 1634. Our search algorithm identified 72,990 USPTO correspondence documents that contained a Mayo citation over the last six years (20 March 2012 to 20 March 2018). Of these, 33,878 were identified in Examiner Office Actions, 34,417 in Applicant Responses to Office Actions and 4,695 in other correspondence, such as Appeals.