First a disclaimer. I am not a biotech patent attorney. So read my comments with that in mind.
It seems to me that the patent is very broad as the press release suggests. Take for example claim 6. The important part is the following:
"providing a pharmaceutically acceptable composition, comprising peptide YY; and administering the pharmaceutically acceptable composition to the mammal".
Two important notes: (1) it does not limit the adminstration method in any way ("it just says administering"; (2) it requires only peptide YY to infringe. That means that anyone using any composition that includes peptide YY (this would include any combination containing peptide YY) for curbing satiety would infringe this claim.
I noticed that agedwardssucks posted a very misleading message on the yahoo board. Do not trust him. He says the functional language in the claims should make it so easy to invalidate. I do not know where he/she gets this idea from. My experience in litigating patents is that it is extremely difficult to invalidate a patent no matter how good your prior art references are. At best, you have a 70/30 chance of invalidating a patent even with what you think is a slam dunk prior art reference. You will be surprised how good lawyers can come up with some amazing arguments. Besides, most companies are extremely hesistant in relying on just invalidation arguments without some decent non-infringement positions. This is a roundabout way of saying that most companies will want to license the Nastech patent if they want to play in this space.
Agedwardssucks says that the preamble in the claims is complicated and should limit the claim. While I don't understand all the technical language, I think that is a moot point as there are a bunch more patent applications that are pending that relate to this patent. See for example patent application no. 10/853824 (http://tinyurl.com/owlzm). This application has not issued yet, but the issue fee has just been paid. That means it will issue in about one to two months. In that application, claim 1 as allowed is reproduced below.
1. A method for treating obesity in a mammalian subject comprising administering peptide YY to said mammal.
Notice this claim is a very clean claim free of any "preamble" or functional language that was used in the issued patent.
The bottom line: anyone working on any satiety composition that contains peptide YY will have to deal with Nastech.
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