Supreme Court Overrules Patent of Naturally-Occurring Human Gene
June 13th, 2013
Intellectual property laws of various types are sometimes considered controversial, but the Supreme Court ruled unanimously today in a case regarding the patenting of naturally-occurring human genes. Essentially, the government had been issuing thousands of patents to companies for providing isolated forms of genes that occur naturally in healthy people. In oversimplified layman’s terms, these genes are used by doctors to compare potentially-cancerous cells with normal ones, so the patent granted companies intellectual property claims for identifying something produced by nature.
For sufferers with symptoms of various diseases such as breast cancer, this caused massive cost increases during diagnosis, and, in some cases, patients went for more invasive procedures without properly assessing their risk, due to financial concerns over the costs of these techniques. Citing a previous case in which courts found that products of nature can’t be patented, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled to invalidate these types of intellectual property claims. Now that the government will no longer be forcing people to pay third-party companies for the right to compare their cells against normal human ones, costs for these procedures will drop dramatically.
Healthy DNA Was Invented by Nature
Imagine how distorted the economy would be if people were allowed to patent naturally-existing objects. What if the first person who discovered an apple patented it, and therefore claimed “dibs” on proceeds from all apples from then forward? This was an issue of serious concern for the Supreme Court, who noted in the decision that Myriad Genetics, the company at the center of the case, did not invent anything new by identifying healthy DNA.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “Myriad did not create anything. To be sure, it found an important and useful gene, but separating that gene from its surrounding genetic material is not an act of invention.” While it’s true that the company did isolate the gene so that it could be easily compared, that is more akin to someone slicing an apple into pieces and attempting to patent sliced apples.
The Court Left an Open Window for Patenting Synthetic Genes
During the discussion of the case, justices theorized that synthetic genes could potentially be patented. This is another controversial issue, because some genetically-modified organisms reproduce naturally after being created, and, in the case of foods, for example, some farmers worry that wind-blown seeds may interact with their crops in a way that could lead to lawsuits from biotech companies. That is certainly a complex issue of its own that deserves close examination.
Ultimately, this decision will help foster a freer market in healthcare and will open genetic diagnoses up to individuals who in the past couldn’t have afforded the testing. The government will no longer be using force to intimidate healthcare providers into paying royalties to companies every time they compare patient DNA to healthy examples of isolates. This will help bring competitive pricing to 21st-century genetic medical solutions, and that’s great for American healthcare consumers.
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