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Supreme Court Throws Out Human Gene Patents
thomst sends this quote from an Associated Press report:
"The Supreme Court on Monday threw out a lower court ruling allowing human genes to be patented, a topic of enormous interest to cancer researchers, patients and drug makers. The court overturned patents belonging to Myriad Genetics Inc. of Salt Lake City on two genes linked to increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. The justices' decision sends the case back down to the federal appeals court in Washington that handles patent cases. The high court said it sent the case back for rehearing because of its decision in another case last week saying that the laws of nature are unpatentable. In that case, the court unanimously threw out patents on a Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., test that could help doctors set drug doses for autoimmune diseases like Crohn's disease."
Now the patent trolls can't sue me for violating a megacorps' 'patent' because I'm still breathing!
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
"The Supreme Court on Monday threw out a lower court ruling allowing human genes to be patented, a topic of enormous interest to cancer researchers, patients and drug makers. The court overturned patents belonging to Myriad Genetics Inc. of Salt Lake City on two genes linked to increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer.
Not quite. The Supreme Court overturned the Federal Circuit ruling that the patents were valid and infringed, and remanded back for reconsideration based on the recent Prometheus v. Mayo case. Basically saying, "take another look." They did not however "overturn patents" nor did they "throw out human gene patents" as the headline states.
We can make predictions and argue about what the Federal Circuit will likely decide on remand, and what the Supreme Court might then do if re-appealed, but it's not nearly as over as the headline or summary say.
Some good news about stupid patents.
Sudden outbreak of commonsense. Nature made it- if nature can't patent it, what right should we have to? NONE. It's nice to
see the original prior art argument hold up.
As someone with an auto-immune disease (Crohn's) who deals with Prometheus Labs every so often, I say this is a very good thing!
Here's links to a few of the patents in question:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5747282.PN.&OS=PN/5747282&RS=PN/5747282
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5837492.PN.&OS=PN/5837492&RS=PN/5837492
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5693473.PN.&OS=PN/5693473&RS=PN/5693473
And here's the Federal Appeals Court case, which lists the rest of the patents:
http://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/document/Assn_for_Molecular_Pathology_v_US_Patent__Trademark_Office_653_F3
Nature is unpatentable, something everyone knows and understands until you get a law degree.
Please, please, please let this ruling stick!
These same justices also need to decide that Monsanto's GMO crop products are WILLFULLY contaminating other people's property. If Monsanto can stop their GMOs' pollen from being carried by the wind, then they can lay claim to all plants with Monsanto genes, until then...
didn't Levi patent Genes years ago or did he just invent them?
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
It just seems like they have set up new ground rules by which an army of lawyers will translate into a high-cost-of-entry market (jn a market with an already bloated cost of entry). I would not hold my breath in hoping that corporations will change their practices...
Please rate my standard /. car analogy:
Last week they overturned a patent on painting a car such that it reflects light with a spectral peak at 650 nm, in other words, its painted red, with the justification that red being a certain wavelength is a fairly obvious natural fact rather than a patentable invention. Today they kicked a patent on "a car cooling system that cools by accepting cool air at the radiator intake, heating it, and exhausting the heated air thus cooling the engine" back for further review based on last weeks overturning because the laws of thermodynamics are also mere laws of nature.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I'm a biologist and I watched the whole evolution of PCR and the mad scramble to patent every bit of human DNA with stunned disbelief. Did the legal beagles not understand that they were allowing the equivalent of patenting somebody else's books in a library?
Apparently, they didn't.
But, after a generation or so, and a festering swamp of patents, the truth seems to be dawning on them. I shall watch our future progress with considerable interest.
Love this from the article... The justices' decision sends the case back down for a continuation of the battle between the scientists who believe that genes carrying the secrets of life should not be exploited for commercial gain and companies that argue that a patent is a reward for years of expensive research that moves science forward.
A reward for doing their jobs, what they're paid to do. Isn't that what their paycheck is for, the money they get from the medications/equipment/etc. they develop? Would they seriously stand in the way of a group of lower-on-the-totem-pole scientists for actually coming up with a cure, claiming "No, you can't cure this strain of ovarian cancer, since it involves such-and-such gene--we own that."? The fact that I lean toward 'yea, they would, wouldn't they?' makes me feel ill. We live in a world where we can be sued for posting a kid's birthday party on youtube with the 'Happy Birthday' song in it, and screw us all if we get cancer and can't rely on different, smaller companies that were on the brink of discovering cures but didn't have the dough to fight the C&D orders.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
i mean, can we get the death penalty for these fuckers? waterboarding/toenail torture, at least?
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
I mean, that's just math. And if math can be patented my plan to sue everyone in the world ever for violating my "use of a series of visual indicators representing logical units to produce corresponding logically valid results" is still a go! I'm go be sooo rich and.. and hey, hey you, you trying to see how much gas is at that gas station! I see that, you'll be hearing from my lawyers!
The Supreme Court didn't rule on the patentability of genes. The Supreme Court sent the case back down to the Federal Circuit with instructions to try again in light of a different and recent Supreme Court case, Prometheus v. Mayo. Ordinarily, this would be RTFA, but since the article is wrong, it would be RTF(case), but I'm guessing the writer isn't here.
I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person that I'm preaching to.
At some point the patent office may ask for a clarification so that their stuff doesn't end up dying in SCOTUS. I do hope that at least one of the justices simply says, "stop producing obscene patents". We all know obscenity and junk patents when we see them.
I found the final statement in the /. blurb to be a bit slanted. It could just as easily have ended with... "throwing open the doors for any number of companies to create tests that could help doctors set drug doses for autoimmune diseases like Crohn's disease." The wording makes it seem like a death sentence for the test, when the exact opposite is true.
Genes were not "invented" or "created" they were only discovered. They should never have been patentable.
If you could patent a gene then you would be able to patent a river if you discovered it first.
Doesn't make sense.
The Yahoo article seems to talk about patenting the gene sequence fragment used to detect the sequence in a human. The company that isolated that gene sequence wants patent protection so they can sell the test without competition from another company that reads the patent to generate a similar test without the R&D costs. This sounds similar to Drugs vs Generic Drugs.
I think they can patent their test, but not the genes they are looking for. If they do have a patent on the gene sequence, then can't they do a cease and desist on all humans with that sequence of genes? Doesn't make sense to me. Of course, if there is a generic test that can look for any gene sequence, then that test can't be patented either. e.g. Invent a device that can look for any sequence, enter the sequence GATTACA = some specific disease. Oops, you're not allowed to look for that sequence because it's patented by XYZ Corp.
So, how do you protect an initial company's R&D investment (finding that sequence of genes)? Should it just be kept secret until they find a therapy or drug or test? If the tests are easy to replicate, then there's no first mover advantage and the drug company has to keep the gene sequence a secret and sell tests without a patent and just say "Trust Us" without peer review.
If another company independently finds the same sequence, then shouldn't they be allowed to use that sequence? I think Yes.
But how do you know if they found the sequence themselves or reverse engineered a competitor's test?
Yes allow methods to test for the effects of having the gene to be patented. BUT TIME LIMITED THE PATENT
Here is a really good example why time limits are necessary: And why the Disney Laws are so evil in the field of medicine!
the shape of the HCV virus is patented and anyone who uses a computer algorithm to search for the shape with electron microscopy must pay a drug company for the right to do so. The end result is that a crucial test to count the virus that could be done inexpensively is now prohibitively expensive as the software to search and enumerate the individual virus particles costs a ridiculous amount per seat. And it is illegal to write and use code that will search for the virus shape. The computer technology to do this is approaching 20 years in age and had the old laws applied I am sure that the costs of the tests would finally start to come down.
Essentially what this does is make it so that only rich with HEP C can get accurate up to date info as to their viral load status if your insurance company will not pay for it more than once. In Canada the Doctors are instructed by the Provincial health authorities to limit access to this test as the cost is so prohibitive that it would bankrupt the system. Yet this only because of the fact that on a provincial basis there is on average only one facility capable of the test for a population of 4 million. So to say that the drug companies have the public interest at heart is not a true statement.
There are people who are getting rich beyond our wildest dreams because the patent laws favour the rich to such an extent that real effective public health care for all has become impossible. All because of the Reagan-Bush era and the continuous stream of payola the drug companies send to the GOP. Essentially Medicare for all on an equal basis in the United States is impossible. And the bastards are going after and successfully screwing over the system in Canada as well with their greed!
Doesn't Monsanto - and other, similar companies - have patents on seeds, like corn? Also, I know they've done a lot of work with other potentially creepy stuff like modified pigs and bees?
Like most slashdotters you are getting confused between patents and copyrights. Levi copyrighted it.
indeed. If they could only extend this to "algorithmic solutions to conceptual problems", since if the concept exists, then the solution derives from it, we can throw out software patents for good.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.