Utility Requirement

§101 of the United States patent statute (35 U.S.C. §101) requires that to be patentable, an invention must be useful. The provision is most significant with respect to the patenting of chemical compounds where case-law has held that some sort of use for the invented compound or substance must be identified. Most recently the utility requirement has been held to preclude the patenting of specific gene sequences where no identified purpose or role of the sequence has been identified.

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