gunnabe, slow down. You are getting ahead of yourself again.
Read the claims a little more carefully and notice the hierarchial nature of the claim references.
The initial claim that you highlight(22), establishes a 'method' of using some combination of predefined AIMs and some trait within a population group, to infer that an individual with such a combination would also share that trait.
Moving down to claim 30 we get a subclaim to 22 in which the 'trait' is Bio Geographical Ancestry (BGA)
At your highlighted claim 32;
32. The method of claim 22, wherein determination of BGA can be used to infer responsiveness of the individual to a drug.
Notice that it does NOT say whether or not the AIM's themselves can be used to determine 'responsiveness', but only if such responsiveness can be infered by BGA.
The next claim 33, does discuss specific drugs and does not mention BGA as a conditional.
33. The method of claim 32, wherein the drug is a cancer chemotherapeutic agent, or a statin.
But if you notice the reference it is a subclaim to claim 32 and not 22. So the BGA filter applies here as well.
Gunnabe, while the patent certainly mentions drug responses, it is not creating 'new' utilities, it is elaborating the existing utility. Without violating this patent anyone could establish direct causal relationships between the SNPs in the listed AIMs and a specific drug response and make a test for it. As long as they did not make the test dependent on BGA information they would not be infringing on this patent.
Additionally, it would be prudent to review the actual patent application history and see which claims are still in play and which ones have been abandoned. You will find that a significant number of claims do not make it through the process.
I hope this helps.
regards,
frog
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