Supreme Court Throws Out Human Gene Patents

Posted by Soulskill on Monday March 26, 2012 @09:23AM from the klingon-gene-patents-still-ok dept.

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."

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ABOUT TIME! by quixote9 · 2012-03-26 09:45 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.