US Court of Appeals reviews Human Gene Patenting Case tomorrow
On Monday, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington will hear arguments in the Myriad case (Association for Molecular Pathology v. USPTO).
Shobita Parthasaraty:
The case stems from a legal challenge, mounted in the fall of 2009, by a coalition of scientists, physicians, and patient advocacy groups represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. They filed suit against biotechnology company Myriad Genetics and the US Patent and Trademark Office, challenging the patentability of genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer. These groups alleged that Myriad’s patents are invalid under Supreme Court precedent and that they limit patient access to testing, increase health care costs, jeopardize testing quality, interfere with research collaboration, and privatize what once were public goods. http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2011/04/opinion_gene_patents_and_democ.html
Andrew Cohen at The Atlantic writes:
Gary Cohen (no relation), who is Vice President of Bioethics, Law & Policy at Foundation Medicine, takes no official position on the case. But he recognized in Judge Sweet’s ruling a shifting of paradigms in this area of law and science. Cohen told me:
We’ve been accustomed to thinking of DNA as a molecule, a chemical entity (which, of course, it is). But in this more sophisticated era, we understand that DNA is not “just” a molecule; its an information-carrying molecule. Genes are better thought of as packets of information, not mere molecules, Judge Sweet reasoned. This reasoning is key to his decision — because the information encoded by a gene is the same, whether its sitting amongst its natural neighbor genes, or in isolated form. That’s why researchers want to isolate genes — because they are useful in all sorts of ways, but only because the isolated form contains the same genetic instructions as the naturally-occuring form. Using this information paradigm, the judge reasoned that “isolation” does not render a naturally-occurring gene something novel, something patentable. This part of the ruling is what makes it so interesting — its very much consistent with “information age” thinking — bits, bytes, genetic base pairs, genes: all information carriers.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/04/nature-vs-nuture-the-continuing-saga-of-the-gene-patenting-case/73359/