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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.'"
Careful, these guys are going to come after you for procreating next!
Think of the children! No, really.
...but fortunately, I have complete legal ownership due to the grandfather clause.
"The U.S. Supreme Court will review genomic patent rights in an upcoming hearing on April 15. At issue is the right of a molecular diagnostic company to claim patents not only on two key breast and ovarian cancer genes — BRCA1 and BRCA2 — but also on any small sequence of code within BRCA1, including a striking patent for only 15 nucleotides. " ...
"This means if the Supreme Court upholds the current scope of the patents, no physician or researcher can study the DNA of these genes from their patients, and no diagnostic test or drug can be developed based on any of these genes without infringing a patent," says Dr. Mason.
* Personally I believe the supreme court will throw out these patents.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
If this is the case, Merck can send a cease and desist letter to that woman who copied my genome without permission and is now seeking child support payments.
Have gnu, will travel.
How did all these patents get issued, when legally in the U.S., patents cannot be issued for products of nature?
Somebody is massively and badly f*cking up, somewhere.
So if you get sick with cancer, just sue the company that is the owner of the gene. Tell the courts they own the patent and you never asked for there products to be put into you. Make clear you only want those mutated cancer cells removed that they own.. Free cancer treatment.
Find a company which "owns" a gene that controls some specific disease, like a cancer. Now, everyone with that disease files a lawsuit against the patent holder. They own it, they should be liable for the damages it is causing by being released into the general population. By claiming a patent, this implies invention, therefore we can infer liability!
After a few multi-million dollar lawsuit awards, no one would want to "own" a gene. Problem solved.
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.
Trying to cover just how much wrong you stuffed into that single sentence would be a task akin to cleaning the Agean Stables. That you say such a thing while you sit on your well-fed ass, in your warm home, taking access to all the 100% clean and safe water and food you could ever want for granted, wearing machine-woven cloth, sitting in front of a machine so incredible it would've been literally indistinguishable from magic 100 years ago (let alone 1000), leads to one of two conclusions:
Either you are a spoiled whinging twit posessed of an ignorance of history as stunning as your lack of perspective, or you are so stupid it's amazing that you remember how to breathe.