At an 11-th hour hearing, a Federal court in Virginia today issued an injunction that will temporarily block controversial new patent rules from taking effect tomorrow (November 1). The court hearing concerned the linkurl:lawsuit;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53705/ filed by GlaxoSmithKline against the US Patent and Trademark Office earlier this month, on the grounds that the patent agency did not have the authority to create the new rules. The final version of the linkurl:new rules,;http://www.thescientist.com/news/display/53497/ which were issued in August by the US Patent and Trade Office, limited the number of times a patent could be reevaluated to two, and limited the number of claims that could be filed on a patent to 25. University tech transfer offices and biotech companies have argued that those changes will make it difficult and expensive to defend patents in the life sciences ? new claims are routinely added to patents over time, as the scope of discoveries...
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