Myriad, however, found a silver lining in the part of the court's decision that will continue to allow patents on cDNAs. Until now, such labs have been forced to leave BRCA genes off their testing list now, they can include them. He predicts that opportunities will expand for companies and academic labs that would like to do multiple-gene testing for cancer risk. Companies will need to do more work to nail down their intellectual property-such as by patenting primers, probes, and testing methods. The main impact of the ruling on diagnostics companies, according to Robert Cook-Deegan, director of a genetics policy institute at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, will be to make it harder to gain exclusive control of DNA information. We can breathe a big sigh of relief that this will no longer threaten to inhibit the progress of DNA research." There have been concerns that you might have a $1000 genome sequence, but a $500,000 royalty fee to use it. "Our position all along has been that patenting DNA in its natural state does not provide any benefit to the public. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, who has long argued for limiting private control of DNA data, said today that he was pleased with the ruling. It is also exactly what the Obama administration asked the court to deliver in a legal petition filed earlier this year.įor many researchers, a split decision was good enough.
This split legal outcome is exactly what many observers predicted. "As a result, cDNA is not a 'product of nature' and is patent eligible." Although "cDNA retains the naturally occurring exons of DNA … it is distinct from the DNA from which it was derived," the court wrote. While the court ruled out "natural" DNA patents, it also permitted cDNA patents. The impact of the decision on other companies may depend on exactly how gene patent claims are worded.
MANS NIPPLE PHOTO SUPREME COURT FREE
… Bottom line, diagnostic genetic testing is now free from any patent threat, forever, and the poor can now have their genes tested as freely as the rich." Daniel Ravicher, PUBPAT's executive director, celebrated today with a triumphal statement, saying: "The Court rightfully found that patents cannot be awarded for something so fundamental to nature as DNA. Backed by many geneticists and medical groups, the advocates sought to have Myriad's patents invalidated so that any lab could test without fear of a lawsuit for BRCA genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer.
In legal briefs, ACLU and PUBPAT and argued that Myriad was using its patents to sue clinics and wrongly prevent them from doing independent diagnostic tests. Five of its many patent claims on the human genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 have been gutted, although other claims remain intact. It was a defeat for the diagnostics firm Myriad Genetics, of Salt Lake City. Overall, the ruling is a victory for two New York City advocacy groups that have waged a long campaign to get the patents knocked down: the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the smaller Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), which initiated the effort. "To be sure, it found an important and useful gene, but separating that gene from its surrounding genetic material is not an act of invention." And "groundbreaking, innovative, or even brilliant discovery does not by itself satisfy" the requirements for winning a patent. "Myriad did not create anything," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for a unanimous court. But it also permitted patents based on laboratory reconstructions of human DNA, known as complementary DNAs, or cDNAs. The U.S Supreme Court ruled today that "naturally occurring" human genes cannot be patented because they are a "product of nature," meaning that they cannot be claimed as a human invention.
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