earthpigg
January 23rd, 2010, 06:47 PM
http://www.dailytech.com/Twenty+Percent+of+Human+Genome+is+Patented+ACLU+Ba ttle+to+Determine+Legality/article17489.htm
Twenty Percent of Human Genome is Patented, ACLU Battle to Determine Legality
Should biotech firms be able to patent genes, block medical tests and university research on grounds of "ownership"?
A pivotal lawsuit launched early 2009 when the American Civil Liberties Union sued biotech firm Myriad Genome. Currently the precedent in U.S. patent law is that you can not patent natural phenomena. You can not patent gold, you can not patent the force of gravity, you can not patent the formula energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. And yet, 20 percent of the human genome has indeed been patented, in what critics argue is a further sign of the slippage of the U.S. patent and copyright system.
Genome patents began about 30 years in the U.S. (following an important 1980 ruling), and have also been ongoing in other nations, as well. Basic rules state that the human genome itself should not be patentable; it must be transfected (take out of the cell) and modified to be sufficiently different from nature's designs before its patentable.
However, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office lately has been slipping -- and that's where the ACLU comes in. Myriad was granted patents in 1997 and 2000 on the breast cancer genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, genes also linked to ovarian cancer. Myriad did virtually nothing to modify these genes -- it just took them out, observed them and filed a patent.
complete article at link.
wow.
Twenty Percent of Human Genome is Patented, ACLU Battle to Determine Legality
Should biotech firms be able to patent genes, block medical tests and university research on grounds of "ownership"?
A pivotal lawsuit launched early 2009 when the American Civil Liberties Union sued biotech firm Myriad Genome. Currently the precedent in U.S. patent law is that you can not patent natural phenomena. You can not patent gold, you can not patent the force of gravity, you can not patent the formula energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. And yet, 20 percent of the human genome has indeed been patented, in what critics argue is a further sign of the slippage of the U.S. patent and copyright system.
Genome patents began about 30 years in the U.S. (following an important 1980 ruling), and have also been ongoing in other nations, as well. Basic rules state that the human genome itself should not be patentable; it must be transfected (take out of the cell) and modified to be sufficiently different from nature's designs before its patentable.
However, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office lately has been slipping -- and that's where the ACLU comes in. Myriad was granted patents in 1997 and 2000 on the breast cancer genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, genes also linked to ovarian cancer. Myriad did virtually nothing to modify these genes -- it just took them out, observed them and filed a patent.
complete article at link.
wow.