Supreme Court to Decide if Human Genes Are Patentable

[the_glow_worm]

Comments

[theguindo]

I don't even understand how there's any claim to patent genes. Like what, specifically, is patented here?

Patenting the test they use to examine those genes is feasible, I guess, if it's specific and different enough from other methods already in use, but that means alternative tests could be developed and used, so it doesn't sound like that's the case.

If they're trying to claim a patent on the gene itself, I don't understand what legal ground they even have to stand on. That's like saying you invented blue eyes.

[ebay313]

This makes me so angry. Profits > lives, as usual -_-

[hinoema]

The ACLU, representing dozens of patients and researchers, said the case challenges the legality and constitutionality of granting patents covering the most basic element of every person’s individuality. The civil rights group maintains that, “What is patented is the abstract idea that nature has made the two genes different in a manner that increases that person’s risk of cancer.”

This is a transparent attempt to use a legal fiction to gain a monopoly on a specific treatment which will enable them to completely control the market on a disease.

They should be lined up and shot.

[natyanayaki]

This possibility is another reason why no genes -even lab created genes- should have been patented.

[boundbyash]

Am I reading this right? Does this means that some company is going to own the rights to genes in my body? This is science gone horribly wrong. Already this year we've had legislators trying to control women's bodies in regard to their reproductive rights, now this? When will everyone understand the basic concept that a woman's body - be it her ovaries or her genes - belongs ONLY to that woman?! Of course this applies to men too, but as it's the breast cancer genes in the spotlight at the moment, I'm only addressing the issue from a woman's point of view. Please let this year end. Next year has to be better - doesn't it?