http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/13/us-usa-court-genes-idUSBRE95C0PW20130613

I'm surprised it's taken this long to reach the Supreme Court, but I'm curious what impacts, if any, it'll have on bio-medical research. A few thousand patents have already been issued for various human genes and sequences. Some argue this ruling will stifle innovation in the field...

6/13/2013 5:48:03 PM

i didn't read that article, but another seemed to think it just limited people patenting natural gene sequences. If there is an innovation done by the scientist, that's perfectly patentable.

6/13/2013 7:41:49 PM

The ruling was that you can't patent the gene, but you can patent a process to diagnose. The companies were trying to stop other groups from even looking at the genes for research, which is kind of shitty.

6/13/2013 11:38:59 PM

the primary issue is that there was a company that was the first to patent a process for finding out whether you had the breast cancer gene, AKA BRACA. it was the same thing that Angelina Jolie had.

the problem is that they were charging 5 grand or so for the test, and not allowing universities or anything else to even conduct research on stuff without paying exorbitant fees and sending out "we're gonna sue" letters to everyone. there were a lot of bad things about it, not the least of which is that they weren't even responsible for the discovery, they just patented things first.

I know that the fight was over the genes themselves, but that is what it all came from.

basically the company was being a cock, and the supreme court smacked them down for it. if they had been far less aggressive in their patent enforcement, this case never would have happened.

6/14/2013 11:51:26 AM