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Gene patents | 154 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Trying Out Google's New Patent Search Tool: The Prior Art Finder ~pj
Authored by: albert on Sunday, August 19 2012 @ 03:31 PM EDT
No, a 'new' gene shouldn't be patentable. It's just information, data. Maybe
you could copyright it {:-)>

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Trying Out Google's New Patent Search Tool: The Prior Art Finder ~pj
Authored by: Wol on Sunday, August 19 2012 @ 08:30 PM EDT
Human genes are human made :-)

If we didn't make them, we wouldn't be here :-)

Cheers,
Wol

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Gene patents
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 20 2012 @ 12:26 PM EDT
So, patents on human genes should be all disallowed, right? After all, they are products of nature... Now that we can construct our own genes, I'd grant that is another thing entirely, maybe.
It is essential that you distinguish between the actual gene and process it get the gene sequence (or just if it has a specific sequence). I do not know of any actual patents on the gene alone except for transgenic animal patents like the first OncoMouse in 1988. Further, as specific cutoff date, any human gene specific patents have to be filed before the start of the Human Genome project circa 1990 (as that was when the raw sequence was being released rather than the official announcement in 2001).

What Myriad and others have done is patent the process to check the spelling of a specific gene that is related to some condition. These so-called gene patents are more on the association between the sequence and some condition. Thus, if you have this specific pattern then you could run as fast as Usain Bolt. Note that apparently a variant of myostatin gives speed in whippets (dog breed) and thoroughbred racehorses (also lack of this the gene is responsible for double muscling in cattle).

After all, the actual association between a specific sequence and a condition is really a scientific fact (maybe proven to be wrong in the future) and, thus, can not be patented. Up until the Mayo v Prometheus ruling, the Courts have failed to separate specific sequence identification from generic procedures refined since the 1960's. So effectively you should be able to get a valid patent to test if the word realize appeared in a document or not. Then get another patent for the word realise, another patent to get the word release, and so on. (These words are chosen since most mutations change letters rather than delete or insert letters).

Hopefully this will change with Mayo v Prometheus ruling so that those gene patents are a just a simple collection of established techniques and facts that are not greater than sum of the whole.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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