Editor's Blog
November 3, 2009
Last week, we featured an article ACLU v. The Gene Patents about a challenge mounted by the ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation to the patents on two genes associated with breast cancer. On Monday, in the words of the ACLU:
"A federal district court ruled today that patients and scientists can challenge patents on human genes in court, allowing a lawsuit challenging patents on two human genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer to move forward. "… The groups charge that the patents are illegal and restrict both scientific research and patients’ access to medical care, and that patents on human genes violate the First Amendment and patent law because genes are ‘products of nature."
Sign up for the Humanity+ newsletter:
2 Comments
Even the term “products of nature” is too vague. That term will become obsolete when we start building genes from the ground up.
There’s nothing vague about the distinction between iron ore versus steel. As for the term becoming obsolete as gene engineering becomes more sophisticated: on the contrary, it will become much better defined.
Last but not least, if your research is funded by federal grants (and most private grants), you’re required to share your reagents once you’ve published them. You can still apply for a patent, if you think that a particular construct you made is novel and/or useful enough. But you still have to share it with fellow researchers in academia.