More on gene patents
Five months ago, a federal judge struck down gene patents. The ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation were suing Myriad Genetics over their patents on breast cancer genes BRCA1 and BRCA2. (See the piece I wrote about this suit and why I don’t like gene patents.)
Why is this news now? Well, mostly because I missed it five months ago. But recent weeks have brought some renewed analysis, including this essay on sharing scientific data and this discussion of what exactly is under scrutiny in a (different) gene patent case. Technically the genes in our bodies aren’t patented, just the isolated version - so that isolating the gene amounts to manufacturing a patented item. According to the NY Times:
[Judge Sweet] said that many critics of gene patents considered the idea that isolating a gene made it patentable “a ‘lawyer’s trick’ that circumvents the prohibition on the direct patenting of the DNA in our bodies but which, in practice, reaches the same result.”
Tags: breast cancer, dna, gene, lawsuit, patent
Uncategorized | Beth | 
September 2, 2010 1:00 pm
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By veterinary technician, September 21, 2010 @ 4:14 pm
Keep posting stuff like this i really like it