Transfection and Coronavirus

U.S. Pat. No. 10,130,701. (Nov. 20, 2018). CORONAVIRUS. Assignee: THE PIRBRIGHT INSTUTUTE (Woking, Pirbright, Great Britain), funded by Wellcome Trust, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, DARPA, DERA, WHO, EU. U.S. Patent Office.

In a patent, the Claims (always in the back of the patent) are the particular innovations claimed as “novel” and “nonobvious.” The Claims are like a deed claim to a piece of land. They delineate the boundaries of the property being claimed for the 20-year monopoly per US Constitution. Article I Section 8 | Clause 8

The Pirbright Institute (UK) claims 35 CORONAVIRUS novelties.

Among them… “Transfecting” “Injecting” causing “infectious bronchitis” and incorporating “mutation”

In the patent world, you don’t get to claim a monopoly if you don’t make your claim in writing, with “specificity” and in its broadest applications. Leaving bits out for later patents is called “inequitable conduct” aka fraud.

See 2173 Claims Must Particularly Point Out and Distinctly Claim the Invention [R-11.2013] https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2173.html

These Pirbright Institute (UK) CORONAVIRUS claims include the kitchen sink of coronavirus attributes. It is an evident attempt to subsume all coronavirus and alleged vaccines. One must know that a trick in patent writing is to encompass other attributes (that you want to hide) with only the slightest general reference to something similar in order to not be accused of inequitable conduct.

For example, the word “variant” is used 60 times in the patent.

However, the defined term is vague with the use of “may.” This leaves open the possibility of including future circumstances whether not known, or known and hidden from view:

‘701 39:7-23

variant

In other words, “mutant” variants not included in these %-ages will certainly be claimed by Pirbright as one that a person of “ordinary skill in the art” would certainly understand is included by this specification. However, reasonable minds can disagree, and that’s where it might go to court where the pharmaceuticals have the U.S. federal judges assigned to these cases in their pockets. The outcome is a forgone conclusion. The small inventor has no chance in this pharma patent mill.

Frankenstein lurks in the gray area.

A layman patent Claims reader could be excused for being confused by this patent-ese technical wording. But, every time a reference is made to another Claim in the back of a patent, some further elucidation of the referenced Claim is claimed also. For example, Claim 1 could be a description of a basic hammer, Claim 2 could reference Claim 1 and add a crooked nail puller. Claim 3 could reference Claim 1 and add a fiberglass shaft on the handle. Claim 4 could reference Claim 1 and claim a 20 pound head and specify it for pounding posts. Then, Claim 5 could reference Claim 3 and add claims to some special alloy shielding on the shaft, and so on.

This patent does just this, Claim 1 describes the basics, then the other 34 describe the various characteristics claimed. You cannot read one Claim and get it, you have to read all 35 together.

The specification for the patent in the front matter provides more detail for what the particular words in the Claims mean.