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I largely agree, but to me it raises the question of where the inventive step is when your "isolated DNA sequence" is simply mechanically or trivially derived f
by zmmmmm 14y ago
I largely agree, but to me it raises the question of where the inventive step is when your "isolated DNA sequence" is simply mechanically or trivially derived from something existing in nature through a systematic process. Can a venture fund now submit a patent for all 20,000 human genes and own the whole human genome? If not, why not?
What I find hard to understand is that if Myriad has patented but one transformation of the DNA (and this being part of the justification for why it is patentable), then surely there must be many other transformations that enable the same test to be carried out, and people should be freely and easily working around this. But they don't seem to be; it seems through patenting one specific transformation Myriad have secured a monopoly on any kind of testing of the gene. I don't understand how they are having their cake and eating it too here.
- rayiner 14y agoMy opinion is that the decision is correct: isolated genes are patentable subject matter. I think the Myriad patent should fail on novelty: they isolated a bunch of variations on the BRCA genes that were indicative of cancer. These variations are naturally occurring and indeed common. Just as you can't patent the chemical composition of sulfuric acid, because it's common in nature and thus not novel, you shouldn't be able to patent these variations.
- zmmmmm 14y agoIf I understand it right, the basis for the "novelty" is not the mutations, rather it is that they are testing cDNA (effectively, a gene with exons spliced out, but as DNA not RNA - so this never exists in nature as such, because splicing occurs on the RNA transcript). My problem with it is that the so called "novel" molecule is a result of a process that is not inventive - it is a systematic process that is routinely done all the time, and which is entirely based on and constrained by the natural enzymes that perform it. So I don't see why a molecule that is merely a mechanical result of a non-novel process is novel.