Judge Invalidates Human Gene Patent

[Sasq]

A federal judge on Monday struck down patents on two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer. The decision, if upheld, could throw into doubt the patents covering thousands of human genes and reshape the law of intellectual property

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/business/30gene.html?emc=eta1

[cjolley]

Just read it in the morning paper.
Lets hope it is the start of a trend towards patent sanity.

[Umfriend]

That would require the use of another patented gene, so I don't think so.

[Dr Mordrid]

From another part of the article;

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York joined with individual patients and medical organizations to challenge the patents last May: they argued that genes, products of nature, fall outside of the realm of things that can be patented.
>
Judge Sweet, however, ruled that the patents were “improperly granted” because they involved a “law of nature.” He 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.”

Quite true: products of nature are not patentable. It would be like patenting addition. What would be permissible would be changes made to the DNA sequence that make it a treatment and the manufacturing process.

What's sad is that these outfits have taken DNA from patients and made millions off them them with no compensation.