By Kevin E. Noonan — Following a telephone conference held on August 16th (a transcript of which can be found here) between the Board and representatives of Junior Party the Broad Institute, Harvard University, and MIT (collectively, Broad) and Senior Party Sigma-Aldrich, the Board issued its Order on September 20th authorizing motions and setting times under 37 C.F.R. §§ 104(c) and 121. The Order begins with the Board’s rejection of any of these motions being "threshold" motions (as the parties had argued), stating that "[p]atentability over the prior art is not now, and never has been, a ‘threshold issue.’" Further,…
