Supreme Court rules human genes may not be patented

Like <i>Bilski</i>, this represents a short-term victory for those favoring patent protection but also shows that the Supreme Court is at least <i>trying</i> to impose limits on the Federal Circuit&#x27;s idea that basically everything under the sun should be eligible for patent protection.<p>Here is an informed summing up by Dennis Crouch at PatentlyO: &quot;What are the consequences [of the ruling]? My immediate reaction is that for most practical applications, the Court&#x27;s holding means that even though the broadest possible biotechnology product claims (to the isolated DNA itself) aren&#x27;t going to be patentable, the key elements in making and using a biotechnology-based invention are still going to be protectable via patents (Part III of the Court&#x27;s opinion makes this especially clear). This will allow researchers and competitors a little bit of wiggle room to design around biotechnology patents because they can use the basic isolated sequence but there will still be substantial limitations on what they can do with that isolated sequence. For this reason, I&#x27;m skeptical that the Court&#x27;s opinion will have a negative effect on the incentives for creating biotechnology-based applications. To the contrary: by affirming that cDNA can be patented, it may strengthen the incentives for investing in research in this area.&quot; (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.patentlyo.com&#x2F;patent&#x2F;2013&#x2F;06&#x2F;myriad-isolated-dna-out-cdna-in.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.patentlyo.com&#x2F;patent&#x2F;2013&#x2F;06&#x2F;myriad-isolated-dna-...</a>)

Anyone that has used a genetic testing service has seen that they test you for hundreds of genetic disorders and traits. If not for patents on genes they could test for thousands.<p>For example, the test at 23andme was only able to test for a couple BRCA1 mutations because most of them are patented. My wife (whose grandmother died at 29 from breast cancer) had to pay $1,500 to get the test done because of these stupid patents.

Yeah this is actually a pretty poor news source (hopefully it will be updated).<p>For more comprehesive coverage info see <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;danielfisher&#x2F;2013&#x2F;06&#x2F;13&#x2F;supreme-court-rejects-human-gene-patents-sort-of&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;danielfisher&#x2F;2013&#x2F;06&#x2F;13&#x2F;supreme-...</a><p>A crucial point is the cDNA <i>is</i> patentable, which still makes very little sense.

Interesting contrast to the patenting of crop genes by Monsanto: their crop cross-pollinates with yours, and now they own the seeds of your crop!<p>It&#x27;s a good thing that the SC struck this down, since it could lead to really weird claims over humans. Imagine if someone receiving patented genes in a treatment absorbed some of that information into their own genetic makeup. Then when they had children, the company could claim that the child contains their intellectual property.<p>Might be a good sci-fi novel.

Hypothetically, if Myriad were able to synthesize and market genes, could they patent a synthetic analog to a naturally occurring gene?<p>e.g. If they isolate a gene that makes a person immune to a specific desease then found a way to package and distribute that gene, could they patent it? It occurred in nature, but something new would be created in packaging it for distribution.<p>Also, nature can create new genes. If Myriad has a patent on a gene that nature produces later (1 in a bazillion chance), what happens to Myriads patent?

Not patentable:<p>1111000010101010<p>Patentable:<p>0000111101010101<p>But don&#x27;t worry, it&#x27;s OK because you&#x27;re only patenting the XOR of the original information string with a string of one&#x27;s, not the original string itself. That&#x27;s _clearly_ different. Someone please come in here and tell me why I&#x27;ve got this all backwards and this isn&#x27;t actually a disaster built on an intellectually dishonest distinction without a difference. I&#x27;m not a biologist nor lawyer nor judge by any means, but this is what the ruling looks like to me.

It&#x27;s ridiculous that a patent system exists that would allow someone to even <i>try</i> to patent the result of billions of years of evolution.

I don&#x27;t get the cDNA part of the ruling. If the spliced message exists naturally, and it must in order to be expressed, how does a DNA copy of that spliced message represent something novel whereas the full unspliced gene does not. After all most cDNA is initially generated from a naturally occurring template in the cell, since you&#x27;re looking for what&#x27;s naturally expressed.

I don&#x27;t know whether to smile at this decision, or frown because it took the Supreme Court to strike this down. I think I&#x27;ll smile at the continuation of recent trend of the Supreme Court benchslapping the Federal Circuit, and slowing the unintended consequences of a specialized appeals court.

What about non-human genes?<p>And if I make an exact replica of a gene, would it be considered &quot;synthesized?&quot;

Does anyone else feel like there should be a different procedure when the court isn&#x27;t an expert on the fields in question that our brought up to them? I&#x27;m not even sure how to standardize that. Just that I feel like there is an issue how scientific rulings are made.

The judgement: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.supremecourt.gov&#x2F;opinions&#x2F;12pdf&#x2F;12-398_8njq.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.supremecourt.gov&#x2F;opinions&#x2F;12pdf&#x2F;12-398_8njq.pdf</a>

Yes, finally! Finally!!<p>Genes shouldn&#x27;t be allowed to be patented at all!!<p>Hail to all those Genetic-Engineers, I&#x27;m proud whenever I discover that you&#x27;ve leaped forward in deciphering nature, but stop patenting the shit out of it!<p>Whoa..

cDNA is a piece of code (a software) and as such it should be protected by copyright laws, but not patents.

This is just me being pedantic, but I want one exception to this - every person, upon birth, should receive an automatic instantaneous patent on their own genome (and only their own genome) that is valid for the lifetime of the owner. I should be free to be able to sell this patent, but upon first sale, the patent expiration rules change to the default.

cDNA is not used for most of the genetic tests (it was back in the day, not anymore). A lot of companies like Ambrygen and GeneDX use gDNA(genomic...i.e naturally occurring) to report the mutations. Hence, its a huge victory.