Inter Partes Reviews in Agriculture: 7 Tips for Strengthening Your Patent Portfolios
Posted 21st October 2016 by Jane Williams
Inter partes reviews (IPRs) were first introduced as an efficient alternative to District Court litigation by the America Invents Act (AIA) in September, 2012. Compared to other technology areas, the total number and frequency of IPR petitions filed relating to agricultural patents are relatively low. However, IPRs are still a potential threat and patent owners should consider adjusting their patent prosecution strategies in order to protect their intellectual property. Here are seven tips for building robust patent portfolios.
Morphometric analysis of the vascular network in renal cancer
Posted 19th October 2016 by Jane Williams
We recently formed a working group at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles that integrates the research areas of molecular pathology, computational biology and digital image analysis under one umbrella and in one location.
Medical Diagnostic Tests: Are They Patentable? Don’t Count on it
Posted 17th October 2016 by Jane Williams
Patents, long considered a staid area of law, have been undergoing tumultuous and far-reaching changes in recent years. A substantial reason for the turmoil has been a string of Supreme Court decisions affecting the threshold standard as to what subject matter is even eligible for a patent, i.e. whether an invention is something that the patent laws are designed to protect.
Speaker profile: Nicolas Yeung
Posted 14th October 2016 by Jane Williams
A scientist at DuPont Nutrition and Health, Nicolas Yeung’s research focus is on the effect of probiotics on human health. qPCR has enabled advances in his research, however it also comes with some potential sources of error. We had a chat with Nicolas ahead of the qPCR and Digital PCR Congress, where he will discuss the approaches to tackling these issues.
Scientists Don’t Just Work in the Lab
Posted 12th October 2016 by Jane Williams
September 2000 is the last time I worked at the bench as a laboratory scientist, but I still consider myself a scientist. I am sure that many people working as bench scientists or in research and development might consider their career paths limited to that sort of work. However, I can assure them that scientists can and do find themselves in a variety of non-science-based positions where their scientific backgrounds are vital.
The Top 10 Plant Genome Databases
Posted 10th October 2016 by Jane Williams
Finding the information that you need on plant genomes is difficult when published data is spread across a vast amount of journals and the rest is unpublished. So we gathered together 10 of the best plant genome databases to make your job easier.
Shaping the Future of Synthetic Biology
Posted 7th October 2016 by Jane Williams
It can be difficult for researchers at the beginning of their scientific career to make their research known – funding is limited and the field is competitive. So we are pleased to provide six scientists at the start of their career the opportunity to present their work at the 3rd Synthetic Biology Congress.
Microbiome of the Italian Lifestyle
Posted 5th October 2016 by Jane Williams
Whilst completing my industrial PhD in Biotechnology, I focused on the characterisation of microbial communities of dairy products, using Next Generation Sequencing approaches in order to evaluate the quality of cheeses. The shift towards studying the human gut microbiome was quite easy. Unfortunately, at the beginning we found that we couldn’t evaluate the “quality” of the gut flora as it was a relatively under-explored field.