Juno v. Kite: Two Examples, One Billion Lost

Juno won one of the largest patent verdicts ever recorded, more than $1.2 billion. The Federal Circuit erased it.

The patent claimed cell therapies using a binding element defined by what it does, and the specification disclosed two examples without giving their sequences. Written description asks whether the specification shows the inventor actually possessed what the claims cover. Two examples of an enormous functional class did not show possession of the class.

This is the companion problem to enablement: a patent can teach someone how to make things and still fail to show that the inventor had the whole claimed category in hand.

The court was explicit that missing sequences were not the fatal defect. It pointed to "other means of identifying which" members would do the claimed job, "such as common structural characteristics or shared traits," as the kind of thing that can show possession. Whether any particular disclosure suffices stays specific to the claims and the field. What this specification never supplied was any way at all to tell which members of the class work.

What This Case Is Not

• It does not hold that examples must include sequences. The court said so directly.
• It does not mean functional claiming fails. It means the specification has to show possession of what is claimed.
• It does not tell you whether your specification supports your claims.

Educational, not legal advice. Consult a qualified patent attorney about your own timing, disclosure and claims.