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Morning. Today, we see a federal agency change its tune on patent thickets, likely because of the incoming administration. Also, a cool mouse study, and a new fund from Atlas Venture.
U.S. PTO withdraws new patent thicket proposal
In May, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office had proposed a rule to crack down on patent thickets — but surprisingly, it has now withdrawn that proposal. The idea had been to curb attempts by biopharma companies to use collections of patents to gain monopolies by preventing generic competitors from entering the marketplace. But the PTO’s proposal was immediately polarizing, and the decision to already withdraw it was thanks to “resource constraints” at the agency — no other explanations offered.
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