Gene Patenting - The Supreme Court Finally Speaks.

Kesselheim AS, Cook-Deegan RM, Winickoff DE, Mello MM.

Source

From the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School (A.S.K.), and the Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health (M.M.M.) - all in Boston; the Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy and Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, Durham, NC (R.M.C.-D.); and the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley (D.E.W.).

Abstract

Are human genes patentable? On June 13, the Supreme Court gave its long-awaited answer - a unanimous "no." The case, Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, ¹ has generated enormous interest among medical institutions, industry organizations, patient advocacy groups, and scientists. " Life's instructions," James Watson asserted in one of 49 amicus curiae briefs, "ought not be controlled by legal monopolies created at the whim of Congress or the courts." For some, the gene patents were symbols of a shrinking public domain and an overreaching patent system that traded too much monopolistic power for too little innovation. For others, the . . .