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Hot damn!, that's excellent. Eddan, thanks for posing the news.<br>
<br>
For those who don't have time to read the court opinion right now:<br>
<br>
The Supreme Court just ruled 9-0 that companies can't patent things
they find in nature, such as human genes. They can patent
artificial gene sequences they produce in the lab, that don't
already exist in nature, which is fine.<br>
<br>
And due to this specific natural-gene patent being invalidated, the
cost of breast cancer screening is about to go down.<br>
<br>
I'm thinking that this ruling is going to unleash a bunch of other
actions to invalidate "found in nature" patents. <br>
<br>
But I wonder about this: will the debate and the legal frontier move
forward to the issue of whether mathematical algorithms are facts of
nature or human creations?<br>
<br>
-G.<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 13-06-13-Thu 8:03 AM, Eddan Katz
wrote:<br>
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<div>The Supreme Court opinion on the Myriad Genetics case about
the BRCA1 & BRCA2 patents is out. Great news for science and
medicine. Opinion was 9-0, invalidating the patent Myriad used
to exercise a monopoly over breast cancer diagnostic tests.</div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div><span><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-398_8njq.pdf">http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-398_8njq.pdf</a></span><br>
<span></span><br>
<span>Held: "A naturally occurring DNA segment is a product
of nature andnot patent eligible merely because it has been
isolated, but cDNA ispatent eligible because it is not
naturally occurring."</span><br>
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From the introductory summary --<br>
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<p><span style="font-size: 9.000000pt; font-family:
'CenturySchoolbook'">Each human gene is encoded as
deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which
takes the shape of a “double helix.” Each
“cross-bar” in that helix
consists of two chemically joined nucleotides.
Sequences of DNA nu-
cleotides contain the information necessary to
create strings of amino
acids used to build proteins in the body. The
nucleotides that code
for amino acids are “exons,” and those that do not
are “introns.” Sci-
entists can extract DNA from cells to isolate
specific segments for
study. They can also synthetically create exons-only
strands of nu-
cleotides known as composite DNA (cDNA). cDNA
contains only the
exons that occur in DNA, omitting the intervening
introns.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 9.000000pt; font-family:
'CenturySchoolbook'">Respondent Myriad Genetics,
Inc. (Myriad), obtained several patents after
discovering the precise location and sequence of the
BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, mutations of which can
dramatically in-
crease the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. This
knowledge allowed
Myriad to determine the genes’ typical nucleotide
sequence, which, in
turn, enabled it to develop medical tests useful for
detecting muta-
tions in these genes in a particular patient to
assess the patient’s
cancer risk. If valid, Myriad’s patents would give
it the exclusive
right to isolate an individual’s BRCA1 and BRCA2
genes, and would
give Myriad the exclusive right to synthetically
create BRCA cDNA.
Petitioners filed suit, seeking a declaration that
Myriad’s patents are
invalid under 35 U. S. C. §101. As relevant here,
the District Court
granted summary judgment to petitioners, concluding
that Myriad’s
claims were invalid because they covered products of
nature. The
Federal Circuit initially reversed, but on remand in
light of </span><span style="font-size: 9.000000pt;
font-family: 'CenturySchoolbook,Italic'">Mayo
Collaborative Services </span><span
style="font-size: 9.000000pt; font-family:
'CenturySchoolbook'">v. </span><span
style="font-size: 9.000000pt; font-family:
'CenturySchoolbook,Italic'">Prometheus Laboratories,
Inc.</span><span style="font-size: 9.000000pt;
font-family: 'CenturySchoolbook'">, 566 U. S. ___,
the Circuit found both isolated DNA and cDNA patent
eligible. </span></p>
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