The NY Times reports that 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.
U.S. Judge Invalidates Human Gene Patent
2 Comments
Recent Posts
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 248: Mark Surman on Why Canada’s AI Strategy Should Prioritize Public AI Models 
We Need More Canada in the Training Data: My Appearance Before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on AI and the Creative Sector 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 247: My Senate Appearance on the Bill That Could Lead to Canada-Wide Blocking of X, Reddit and ChatGPT 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 246: Mohamed Zohiri on the Rise and Emerging Regulation of Stablecoins 
Senate Bill Would Grant Government Regulatory Power to Mandate Age Verification For Search, Social Media and AI Services Accompanied By Threat of Court Ordered Blocking of Lawful Content
“Myriad Genetics, the company that holds the patents with the University of Utah Research Foundation, asked the court to dismiss the case, claiming that the work of isolating the DNA from the body transforms it and makes it patentable. ”
So, they claim they aren’t actually patenting the two genes, they are patenting transformed version of the genes? To me this would invalidate the work of the human genome project, as they cataloged not the human genome but some variation thereof… Or am I understanding the claim incorrectly?
They’re claiming that isolated DNA is “transformed”, so the not-found-in-nature requirement of a patent doesn’t apply to the genes.