Marge Simpson: 1 Monty Burns: 0

History was made today.  Literally, history.. In a majority decision written by Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court the court affirmed the plaintiffs’ claim that because DNA is naturally occurring, it “lie(s) beyond the domain of patent protection.” In so deciding, the court effectively reversed decades worth of policy by the US Patent and Trade Office, which has granted thousands of gene patents, many of which should now be rendered invalid.

The landmark decision heralds patients rights’ and a poses a blow against corporate healthcare monopolies by unanimously deciding that human DNA is “a product of nature” and thus “not patent eligible.” 

The case, AMP v. Myriad Genetics, revolved around Utah corporation Myriad Genetics’ exclusive patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which, when mutated, lead to a very high risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Because Myriad was the first to identify the BRCA genes, it patented them, charged exorbitant prices for

BRCA testing, and then aggressively prevented any other labs from offering the same test. In 2009, a coalition of plaintiffs including the ACLU, Breast Cancer Action and a number of scientific organizations, researchers and patients sued Myriad, claiming that it had no legal right to hold patents on the BRCA genes.

The Court refuted Myriad’s claim that because it had put a lot of time and money into locating the gene, that it therefore deserved a patent: “extensive effort alone is insufficient” to make something patent-worthy. However, the Supreme Court rendered that just because you tried really hard doesn’t mean that you deserve a multi-billion dollar legal monopoly.

What this means is that Myriad’s monopolized tests will no longer cost $4000 to test for BRCA mutations, lower cost alternatives will be available, and women testing for cancer can get a second opinion on this life changing test.

Furthermore, this decision is ubiquitous in its shockwave, for now all genentic patents, currently in the thousands, that the US Patent and Trade Office has granted (way to go US Patent office..) are now rendered invalid.

So test on our soldiers of science without the cumbersome impediments of genetic patents.  However, Thomas did denote that cDNA the tidied-up, synthetic version of DNA used to actually perform tests (called cDNA) may be patent eligible since it’s not naturally occurring and that only gDNA is free from such a burden.  It remains to be seen how exactly this distinction between gDNA and cDNA will effect the genetic testing and research industry. Some experts have suggested that without the gDNA patent, the cDNA patent isn’t worth much.


Source(s): 

Supreme Court Strikes Down Human Gene Patents | The Nation http://www.thenation.com/article/174789/supreme-court-strikes-down-human-gene-patents#ixzz2WEQNyT6L 

So “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;”

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