US Says Genes Should Not Be Patentable

Geoffrey.landis writes "A friend-of-the-court brief filed by the US Department of Justice says that genes should not be patentable. 'We acknowledge that this conclusion is contrary to the longstanding practice of the Patent and Trademark Office, as well as the practice of the National Institutes of Health and other government agencies that have in the past sought and obtained patents for isolated genomic DNA,' they wrote (PDF). The argument that genes in themselves (as opposed to, say, tests made from genetic information, or drugs that act on proteins made by genes) should be patentable is that 'genes isolated from the body are chemicals that are different from those found in the body' and therefore are eligible for patents. This argument is, of course, completely silly, and apparently the US government may now actually realize that."

Comments

Re:It's not like the DNA was already functioning

[MartinSchou]

Personally, I think deconstructing the human genome is somewhat more complex than designing an opamp, but hey, that's just me.

It may be more complex, but that does not make it an invention.

Show me where I can find a ratchet wrench, and I'll call it a discovery.
On the other hand, I can tell you where to find pretty much all the genes that are patented - in organisms that nature derived on its own.

Now - if, on the other hand, some company designs a gene, that does something that has never existed in nature - that'd be an invention. But moving genes from a fish into a plant isn't an invention, any more than adding "on the internet" onto already existing technology makes that worthy of being patented. Very neat, and you should probably be allowed a patent on the technology used for it.