Striking down breast cancer related gene patent may not impact industry, says New York attorney

Striking down breast cancer related gene patent may not impact industry, says New York attorney
20. April 2010 06:56


The recent decision in a Federal District Court in New York to strike down a patent for the breast cancer related BRCA-1 gene may not have the broad impact on the technology industry it had originally been feared to, says a New York attorney.

“Footnote 51 on page 123 of the opinion is the only place where Judge Sweet addresses the policy implications of his decision to strike down the patent because the DNA sequence was not patentable subject matter”

Ted Sabety, an intellectual property attorney in New York, notes that Judge Robert W. Sweet's opinion in the Southern District of New York case In the Association for Molecular Pathology, et al, v. the United States Patent and Trademark Office, et al., relies heavily on case precedent that not only pre-dates the 1952 patent statute, but was established prior to the discovery of DNA's structure and function.

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Striking down breast cancer related gene patent may not impact industry, says New York attorney