The Cohen/Boyer patents and current issues in patent reform

The Cohen/Boyer patents, some of the most successful ever for universities, were filed before the Bayh-Dole Act was passed in 1980:

US 4,237,224, filed January 4, 1979, claimed the following priority chain:

This application is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 959,288, filed Nov. 9, 1978, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 687,430 filed May 17, 1976, now abandoned, which was a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 520,691, filed Nov. 4, 1974, now abandoned.

Inventors: Cohen; Stanley N. (Portola Valley, CA); Boyer; Herbert W. (Mill Valley, CA)

The '224 patent has been cited by 251 patents.

US 4,468,464, filed November 9, 1978, claimed the following priority chain:

This is a continuation of application Ser. No. 687,430 filed May 15, 1976, now abandoned which is a CIP of Ser. No. 520,691 filed Nov. 4, 1974 now abandoned.

The '464 has been cited by 87 patents.

US 4,740,470 was filed April 20, 1984, after Bayh-Dole, but claimed priority as follows: This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 959,288, filed Nov. 9, 1978, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,468,464; which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 687,430, filed May 17, 1976, now abandoned; which is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 520,691, filed Nov. 4, 1974, now abandoned.

The '464 has been cited by 10 US patents.

In terms of the current discussion at the USPTO about limiting continuations as-of-right to one continuation, note that all Cohen-Boyer patents involved MORE THAN ONE continuation.


[IPBiz post 1305]