More on the Metabolite decision

Of Metabolite, Reuters wrote: The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, June 22, 2006, dismissed an appeal of a key patent case by medical testing company Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings

Also, Writing for the three dissenters, Justice Stephen Breyer said the patent amounted to "no more than an instruction to read some numbers in light of medical knowledge."

The $64 question is whether the patentees, who gained the medical knowledge by their research (and which knowledge was not readily accepted by medical peers) should be able to benefit from a "correlation type" patent claim.

In passing, one notes the irony of Justice Breyer citing to a paper by Professor Lemley in Breyer's dissent, in light of Lemley's position on the Metabolite case.