Human Gene Patent Challenged In Australian Court

dov_0 writes "Following a successful patent challenge in the US, an action is underway in Australia to have patents on two breast cancer genes declared invalid."

Comments

Good

[geekoid]

This shit won't end well if people are allowed to patent genes.
The methods for finding genes? sure, medications you can make from studying genes? sure. Genes? no.

A company is more then welcomes to keep there findings as a trade secret. It's a pretty shitting thing to do in an industry founded on sharing.

Re:Investors Flee the Scene

[confused one]

A little voice in the back of my mind is saying that cancer research is something that should be backed with my tax dollars, such that they are.

No....

[copponex]

Government dollars are for difficult projects that improve our lives, like trillion dollar wars, multi million dollar arms sales to future enemies we'll fight in trillion dollar wars, and so forth.

Easy things like cancer research that carry zero benefit for the population at large should be privately owned forever by unaccountable tyrannies. Not only do we spend billions of dollars on erectile dysfunction research and marketing instead of cancer, but the drug companies also get to spend two to four times more money for marketing than research, which results in lots of awesome TV commercials.

It's a win-win!

Re:May be missing the point of the patent system

[DrgnDancer]

I think the argument that I would make (and most reasonable people who are not entirely against the whole concept of patents) is that it would be perfectly reasonable to patent the drug you developed to fight Breast Cancer based upon your discovery of this gene. Patenting the gene itself is not reasonable. I cannot patent my discovery that steam forced into a confined space can turn temperature energy into kinetic energy. I can patent the steam engine I built based on this realization. I cannot patent my discovery that these specific proteins in combination result in a Breast Cancer gene. I can patent the drug I synthesized to combat breast Cancer based on this gene's construction.