US Supreme Court rules human genes cannot be patented

[DustyKat]

THE US Supreme Court says companies cannot patent human genes, a decision that could profoundly affect the medical and biotechnology industries. The high court's unanimous judgment reverses three decades of patent awards by government officials.

It throws out patents held by Salt Lake City-based Myriad Genetics on an increasingly popular breast cancer test brought into the public eye recently by actress Angelina Jolie's revelation that she had a double mastectomy because of one of the genes involved in this case.

Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote the court's decision, said that Myriad's assertion - that the DNA it isolated from the body for its proprietary breast and ovarian cancer tests were patentable - had to be dismissed because it violates patent rules. The court has said that laws of nature, natural phenomena and abstract ideas are not patentable.

"We hold that a naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated," Justice Thomas said.

Patents are the legal protection that gives inventors the right to prevent others from making, using or selling a novel device, process or application. The US Patent and Trademark Office has been awarding patents on human genes for almost 30 years, but opponents of Myriad Genetics's patents on the two genes linked to increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer say such protection should not be given to something that can be found inside the human body.

The company has used its patent to come up with its BRACAnalysis test, which looks for mutations on the breast cancer predisposition gene, or BRCA. Those mutations are associated with much greater risks of breast and ovarian cancer. Women with a faulty gene have a three to seven times greater risk of developing breast cancer and also have a higher risk of ovarian cancer.

Myriad sells the only BRCA gene test. Opponents of its patents say the company can use the patents to keep other researchers from working with the BRCA gene to develop other tests.


Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/s...ed/story-fn5fsgyc-1226663537766#ixzz2W8IgrMuv

Dusty.

 

[DustyKat]

Will US decision to ban DNA patents have power to change Australia's laws?

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/healthreport/gene-patents/4762970

Dusty.

 

[Dexky]

‘You definitely need a nuanced approach. You need to make sure that industry is encouraged to continue to innovate, and that's what patents are for, basically, to encourage innovation. But at the same time it really shouldn't impact on research and on access to health care. So you really need to have clear limits over what is and isn't patentable. And I guess the problem at the moment is those limits aren't clear.’

…if someone can answer where to strike that balance, I'd be particularly grateful!!

I just don't see the level of research continuing without patent protection. I suppose the benevolent govt. research labs will be just as gung-ho as the private, evil profiteers!! Dream on!!

 

[my little penguin]

^^^ yeah that

no patents = no money ( university grants from corporate sponsors)
so private and govt will both be out.
Sure the drugs cost less-
but then no new drugs in the future.
At least that is how it works in the US - no matter what you happen to be making
Its all about the $$$$

 

[Dexky]

I thought about this today and it occurred to me that Clarence Thomas probably never saw a patent restriction he didn't like until this one. Thomas and the ACLU are strange bedfellows! If they agree on something then one or the other or both have some undercover motivation. This time I suspect it's Thomas and the other conservatives on the court who see this DNA question as a way to strike a blow at similar issues, say stem cell research. Not because they want to make the innovations available to the common man but because they want to quash the research all together...on (what I believe to be) their misguided religiosity!

 

[LindaS]

When I think of existing patent law, it makes clear sense that the SCOTUS ruled that you can't patent human DNA. And there will be more research, because if you make any changes, no matter how small, you can patent that, and that is where gene therapy is headed.

 

[DougUte]

SCOTUS set the boundary by this decision. Using the logic used by Myriad Genetics, anybody could patent anything they discover in nature. Myriad did not invent those genes. They discovered ph.d. What they can do is patent any technology they develop as a result of their research.

This has been a big story here in Utah, with Myriad Genetics being based here.

 

[Dexky]

Myriad sells the only BRCA gene test. Opponents of its patents say the company can use the patents to keep other researchers from working with the BRCA gene to develop other tests.


Exactly what is at issue here? The test or the gene/dna that the test targets? I agree they can't patent the dna but a specific process that isolates a specific gene and determines a likely outcome(cancer or not) associated with that gene?? Even if the discovered process introduced no new technology at all, if the result is a new discovery that saves lives or prevents cancer, they should be able to patent that process.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong?

 

[DougUte]

The patent was on the gene. It was done to prevent others from developing a process involving that gene. Myriad should have just parents the process.