al-mofhariz

As I'm sure most of you have heard, the US Supreme Court issued its ruling on the Myriad Genetics case today. There were no real surprises to speak of in the decision, as the court ruled exactly along the lines the executive branch asked it to. In an amicus curiae brief, lawyers for the US Department of Justice argued that whereas DNA sequences ought to not be eligible for patent protection, modified or so-called "complimentary" DNA does not qualify as a product of nature and is therefore patentable. The Supreme Court's ruling, authored by Justice Thomas, towed exactly this line. We've covered this case previously on this blog ( here , here and here ) so I won't go into all of the details now.  But there are a couple of things worth pointing out. Myriad's argument that gene sequences are patent eligible because the act of isolating DNA turns a product of nature into an invention is a stretch, to say the least. Still, there was widespread concern that inv...

On April 15 of 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear a case challenging the practice of patenting DNA sequences, including human genes. With the forbidding title of Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics , this case is all but certain to have a huge impact on the history of biotechnology, the patent law, and interactions between science and capitalism more broadly. Today, I am posting the first of a two-part piece on the case, with some thoughts on patenting living things and parts thereof. The case currently before the US Supreme Court concerns a biotech company called Myriad Genetics. During the mid 1990s, Myriad successfully filed for a patent on two genes (BRCA1 and BRCA 2) that dramatically increase a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer. Having sequence both of these two genes, Myriad Genetics developed a diagnostic test, which it currently markets for several thousand dollars. It is worth emphasizing that Myriad’s patent covers the genes them...