A Cure For Patent Pathology? The Supreme Court Reviews The Patentability Of Human Genes

Abstract

“Are human genes patentable?” On November 30, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to answer this single question in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics. Of course, the petitioners, including health care providers, professional associations, and patients, worded the question to favor the answer they want: “No, human genes are not patentable.” For Myriad Genetics, the patent owner who would like its patent rights upheld, the question is better phrased as whether one can patent “isolated molecules of deoxyribonucleic acid that were identified and defined by human inventors.” The practical stakes in the Court’s decision, which should come in the first half of 2013, are enormous. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued tens of thousands of patents on genetic sequences over the past few decades, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the appellate court entrusted with hearing virtually all U.S. patent appeals, has never declared such sequences to be non-patentable subject matter. For more than a century, patents have issued on isolated versions of naturally occurring substances other than DNA. Many believe that gene patents are crucial to the modern biotechnology industry. On the other hand, many researchers and clinicians feel that gene patents, particularly human gene patents, are commonly unnecessary to spur innovation and in fact interfere significantly with scientific and technological progress, whether by slowing or diverting research, impeding the provision of diagnostic tests, or generally increasing costs for clinical and scientific work. The patents at issue in Myriad make such concerns particularly poignant. These patents relate to BRCA1 and BRCA2, genes associated with a predisposition to breast cancer. The obvious public interest in ready access to cancer diagnosis helps account for the fact that petitioners’ lead lawyers are not the normal high-priced advocates for a private company accused of patent infringement. Instead, those lawyers work for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, an organization more commonly associated with battles for civil rights than rights in technological innovations.