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You Don't 'Own' Your Own Genes
olePigeon (Wik) writes "Cornell University's New York based Weill Cornell Medical College issued a press release today regarding an unsettling trend in the U.S. patent system: Humans don't "own" their own genes, the cellular chemicals that define who they are and what diseases for which they might be at risk. Through more than 40,000 patents on DNA molecules, companies have essentially claimed the entire human genome for profit, report Dr. Christopher E. Mason of Weill Cornell Medical College, and the study's co-author, Dr. Jeffrey Rosenfeld, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey and a member of the High Performance and Research Computing Group, who analyzed the patents on human DNA. Their study, published March 25 in the journal Genome Medicine, raises an alarm about the loss of individual 'genomic liberty.'"
Because the patents cover isolated, amplified genes which are not products of nature.
Every material object in the sidereal universe is a 'product of nature'. The question is whether or not it was modified by man when the issue of patentability comes up.
Well, since it's actually a derivative work of both your genomes, this is classed as a collaborative effort.
Unless you were engaged in a limited liability partnership, you can be sued for liability issues arising from the partnership.
I'd suggest consulting a lawyer if you didn't have any contracts drawn up in advance ... you may have unwittingly entered into a partnership which doesn't shield you from liability, and it sounds like it's too late to withdraw without consequences. ;-)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The same SCOTUS which decided that cities and counties can condemn people's homes because a golf course is better use of the land?
I doubt it. I'm going to be genuinely surprised if I don't have to pay licensing fees if I have a baby in the coming years.
Except that it is not the same SCOTUS that reached that decision. Four years ago, I would have bet that the balance of power in the SCOTUS had shifted such that it would have overturned that ruling (if someone could have come up with a case that gave them a fig leaf against "overturning precedent"). However, I am no longer sure how the balance goes on that issue. Several Justices who I thought I understood their judicial philosophy have voted the opposite of what I expected in the last couple of major, controversial decisions. In the same way, Sotomayor and Kagan have taken positions that suggest that they might be less likely to uphold the Kelo decision than their political philosophy before getting on the Court would have suggested.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
company will sue the cancer patients
You might by trying for cynicism, but this is just all too similar to cases already won by Monsanto
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Let me guess the plot - Science gone mad?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Appears that sometimes the plants don't have to be related at all.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/horizontalGeneTransfer.php
"Genetic engineering creates vast arrays of transgenic DNA that could spread, not only through cross-pollination with the same or related species, but also through the direct uptake of the transgenic DNA by cells of unrelated species, a process called horizontal gene transfer."
People do own their own genes, as they occur in their bodies.
From the Federal Register:
A patent on a gene covers the isolated and purified gene but does not cover the gene as it occurs in nature. Thus, the concern that a person whose body ``includes'' a patented gene could infringe the patent is misfounded. The body does not contain the patented, isolated and purified gene because genes in the body are not in the patented, isolated and purified form. When the patent issued for purified adrenaline about one hundred years ago, people did not infringe the patent merely because their bodies naturally included unpurified adrenaline.