ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION The interest in the current state of the art in chiral separations of analytical chemists and other scientists working in the pharmaceutical industry is well known. However, to the pharmaceutical companies themselves, the state of the art of chiral separations in years gone by may be just as critical to their business. The field of chiral separations has featured strongly in recent pharmaceutical patent cases and has had a bearing on the outcome regarding the “inventiveness” of chiral drug molecules when patent law is applied. One case found its way to the then highest U.K. court, the House of Lords (now the Supreme Court), and in doing so redefined the scope of patent law.
