BIO Submits Amicus Brief to Supreme Court in NAUTILUS, INC. V. BIOSIG INSTRUMENTS, INC.

The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) is the country’s largest biotechnology trade organization, representing over 1100 companies, academic institutions, and biotechnology centers in all 50 States and countries around the world.1 BIO members undertake research and development of biotechnological healthcare, agricultural, environmental, and industrial products. While some of BIO’s corporate members are Fortune 500 companies, 90% of its members are small or mid-size businesses, with annual revenues of less than $25 million. All of BIO’s members share a strong commitment to the stability of the Nation’s patent system and, indeed, for most members the reliability and durability of patents is vital to their ability to raise the investment capital that funds their research and product development efforts. The question presented in this case is of great importance to BIO’s members because acceptance of petitioner’s radical view of the Patent Act’s definiteness requirement would upset “the delicate balance that the law attempts to maintain between inventors, who rely on the promise of the law to bring the invention forth, and the public, which should be encouraged to pursue innovations, creations, and new ideas beyond the inventor’s exclusive rights.”