DNA is not anything which any human being has created. It should be and remain unpatentable.

Wood, stone, and even naturally-occurring metal were not created by humans either, yet patents have been granted for ways of doing novel things with those materials.
Some of the precursor molecules for various plastics are natural too, yet patents have been granted for derivative molecules.

The naturalness of a substance should not be a sufficient criterion for rejecting patents covering novel use thereof.

Now, whether genes should be patentable is another issue, yet to be fully resolved.

jesus frikkin christ - what is it with you septics and thinking you can "own" everything?

All human genes are known, so who would be the owner...?

I can only imagine that this refers to artificially created plasmids, targeting techniques for biotherapeutics etc. Or is our judicial system really that far behind?

If anyone wants to know their BRCA1 susceptibility risk, send me an email and I'll get it done for 1/100th what Myriad charges. This is quite outdated.

PS Moderators, I'm totally joking. But I think that openbio is to the point that Myriad's argument would be considered the equivalent of "patenting" geometry.

"But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has now twice ruled that genes can be patented, in Myriad's case because the isolated DNA has a "markedly different chemical structure" from DNA within the body."- from the article

Reminds me of how to "knock off" an invention, product, or design by altering it slightly. If it hinders research because a lab has to pay a royalty to the patent holder, then the research should be done in China, where intellectual property is just an intellectual exercise.

only in America... patents should be for inventions, not for discoveries... and this only should simply solve the issue.

btw.. what is meant by a "patented gene"? ... what does it imply? would anyone explain it to me, please?

I want to put a patent on Scarlett Johansson

breast cancer is alleviated by marijuana. I knew you couldn't handle the truth
All it takes is one doofus judge to make a wrong decision that will negatively impact humanity for the rest of its duration here on earth. Common sense says you cannot patent nature, and common sense also says that when you try to dominate nature by tinkering with DNA or by any sort of ill-conceived tinkering, you always get bad results. but folks in positions of authority lack common sense these days, so hang on to your hats

yet patents have been granted for ways of doing novel things with those materials.

Pray explain exactly what novel ways of doing novel things with the discovered gene has occurred here to make it patentable?

If a company can own the materials that make me up then that opens the door to charging royalties for our existence in both life and death all the way through to the complete decay of our genetically identifiable components. This is completely unreasonable. They did not make the machine that made my DNA, They only made the machines that were able to identify and catalog our DNA. That machine can carry a patent, not the DNA that is already there. Newly created DNA that has no natural analog may carry a patent however an ongoing royalty payout cannot be allowed. Imagine having cancer and getting a DNA injection that cures it and then one day you can't pay. What then? Do they come and give you cancer back? The court had better tread wisely on this.

P.S. I am so glad the world is coming to an end in just a few short weeks. lol

I'll be the first in line to get my GULO gene fixed, but since no human has a functioning version of it I bet the first person to achieve this will get a patent on it :(

We are fucked if such a decision has to be made by your us court.
What's next? Water? Air?
Pandora's box... This smells like a bad sf story!

First of all it's not up to a small group of people to decide. Let's force a worldwide referendum on it and put an end to this madness.

Perhaps gene therapy can help to ameliorate the more puzzling and disturbing aspects of human behavior
http://www.youtub...XpLOYfog

Pray explain exactly what novel ways of doing novel things with the discovered gene has occurred here to make it patentable?

The ability to assign legal status to genes offers the advantage of declaring particular genes dangerous, whether 'natural' or not, and requiring their removal from the gene pool for the Greater Good:

"The God gene hypothesis proposes that a specific gene (VMAT2) predisposes humans towards spiritual or mystic experiences...The God gene hypothesis is based on a combination of behavioral genetic, neurobiological and psychological studies."

-I for one am in favor of assigning a relative positive or negative value to genes and their associated expressions. Crime and psychosis may thus be eliminated by simply making the genes which elicit them illegal to possess or distribute.

Or at least assessing a 'sin' tax on people such as religionists who insist on keeping deleterious genes because their god sought fit to dispense them and who are they to argue?

Lets all recognize that we can't get away from human psychology. There are VAST sums of money in the balance here. Which means it will be a never ending battle to balance incentivising the investments needed to understand these diseases, and the interests of patients for access to treatment.

No naive one solution is going to fix the problem. If only public funding is used to research the human genome, it will advance at a tiny fraction of the current pace. If there is only aggressive privatization, life saving developments can be used to "blackmail" people into handing over everything they own to stay alive.

Lets all be grown ups and recognize there is a middle ground and a lot of effort will be needed to fend off the "idealists" on both sides to keep it there.

btw.. what is meant by a "patented gene"? ... what does it imply? would anyone explain it to me, please?

Given the way "patented genes" have been used in farming, the owner can probably sue you if you happen to have the patented gene.

It has happened before in the case of GM corn, when their modified corn pollen screwed up a farmer's corn, the company sued the farmer and WON.

Therefore, if the same logic gets applied to human genes, it seems likely that corporations would be able to sue humans who have the gene they have "patented".

See Otto's post for a prime example of this potential evil, as Otto is about an evil, genocidal person as you can find, and bears witness of it right here, proudly, for everyone to see.

You shouldn't be able to patent publicly known things - and human genome was published already. Of course, it's difficult to explain it to patent officers, who aren't penalized for granting of unoriginal patents and who can only get money with their acceptation.

"See Otto's post for a prime example of this potential evil, as Otto is about an evil, genocidal person as you can find, and bears witness of it right here, proudly, for everyone to see." -Lurker2358

In defense of Ghost, the real and present danger is gender selection, because in this patriarchal world, boys would be ushered in exclusively leaving a future of dateless nights.
As for Otto, well, the Malthusians should be the first to go!

@dogbert:

Wood, stone, and even naturally-occurring metal were not created by humans either, yet patents have been granted for ways of doing novel things with those materials.

You cannot patent wood, stone, water, air, fire, etc. Natural processes/substances are not patentable -- and should not be. DNA is on the same order as wood, stone, water, etc. It is a natural substance created by natural processes.

I didn't say that wood, stone, etc. are patentable. I said that certain ways of *using* these pre-existing substances, in modified forms, are sometimes patentable.

@kevinrtrs

Pray explain exactly what novel ways of doing novel things with the discovered gene has occurred here to make it patentable?

Oops---I was thinking of genes that are synthetic (artificially modified or built from scratch), not simply discovered. Indeed, mere discovery should not be reason for a patent!

See Otto's post for a prime example of this potential evil, as Otto is about an evil, genocidal person as you can find, and bears witness of it right here, proudly, for everyone to see.

Yeah, QC would be all for weeding out genes which might cause homosexuality but not sociopathy. I suppose he considers them the same thing.

No, the real evil is that religionists declare a zygote a human being and then resist the sort of stem cell research which could help millions suffering from congenital diseases. Suffering brings one closer to god, they say.

God must WANT people to suffer, he sat by for a few hundred thousand years and watched them live godless lives, condemned one and all to hell, and then finally decided to offer redemption through the pagan rite of human sacrifice.

He gives us all sorts of deformity which his lacked forbid us to attempt to fix. WHY?

Hey QC want a laugh?

"PAT ROBERTSON EMBRACES EVOLUTION: 'IF YOU FIGHT SCIENCE, YOU'RE GOING TO LOSE YOUR CHILDREN'"

""You go back in time, you've got radiocarbon dating, you got all these things, and you've got the carcasses of dinosaurs frozen in time out in the Dakotas," said Robertson Tuesday. He continued, "There was a time when these giant reptiles were on the earth and it was before the time of the Bible. So, don't try and cover it up and make like everything was 6,000 years."

-AHAAAHAAAA. But this is not the first time you all have been forced to accept the light. You ALWAYS choose the darkness of ignorance. You INSIST on it.

I suppose now that pat (and the pope) accepts reality, we might address the question to HIM: Why did god wait to offer mankind the ONLY way to get to heaven? (john3)

We've chased you religionists from our living rooms back to within a few picoseconds of the big bang in only a few hundred years. VICTORY is in sight.

Yeah, QC would be all for weeding out genes which might cause homosexuality but not sociopathy. I suppose he considers them the same thing.

I'm not for "weeding out" anyone, and I don't consider homosexuality a genetic disorder. It's a choice that people make, and contrary to nature.

I am for the death penalty for most forms of murder, however. Not only is it the right thing for the individual, but it's the right thing for civilization. We shouldn't keep murderers in prisons where it costs 30,000 per year to keep them locked up and fed.

I never said anything about harming homosexuals.

If our civilization would quit accepting every perverted lifestyle choice that comes down the pipe for PC reasons, this would be considered a mental disorder like it used to be, and they'd be counseled and treated against their perversion.

Did you see on HLN the new "transgendered" 5th grade boy wants to go in the girls bathroom at school? Why should the girls be required to deal with this?

...cont...

Because the alleged "rights" and "freedoms" of one pervert (who needs medication, parenting, and mental health counseling,) infringes upon the rights of everyone else.

The little kid on Kindergarten Cop was right:

"Boys have a penis. Girls have a vagina."

Little boy should be told he has a penis, and needs to learn to accept it and love it.

If we quit promoting in pop culture (with perverts like RuPaul,) and quit accepting every perversion and distortion that comes down the pipe, this problem wouldn't keep growing like some sort of plague.

@ Lurker:
I'm disappointed by your extremely judgmental stance toward gays and others that don't fit your notion of the norm. World culture, politics, and ideals are transformed and enriched by myriads of these "abnormal" people. Try to imagine the terror that a child must live through of being "discovered", when his biology gives him no choice. . And in your own circle of friends, relatives, and friends of friends, you haven't encountered a gay person who on every level except sexual preference was like anyone else? You must be living in a cocoon if not. Homophobia is a condition of non-acceptance of the "other", similar to xenophobia but with more dangerous consequences at times. You can differ with others in matters of opinion, but not in choices of who they love.

I don't consider homosexuality a genetic disorder. It's a choice that people make, and contrary to nature.

No. That which occurs naturally is not contrary to nature. It's NOT a choice--it's a discovery. Ask some gay people about it, and bring an open mind with you (if you can find one).

Not only is [the death penalty] the right thing for the individual, but it's the right thing for civilization.

Provided, of course, that the condemned are incontrovertibly shown to be guilty. Consider the fact that DNA evidence has exonerated many people awaiting execution for murder.

If our civilization would quit accepting every perverted lifestyle choice that comes down the pipe for PC reasons, this would be considered a mental disorder like it used to be, and they'd be counseled and treated against their perversion.

You should say: If our civilization would open its eyes (and hearts), and achieve non-prejudicial understanding, it would never again mis-classify victims of a hormonal "oops" in utero. There would be no "perversion" needing anyone's narrow-minded "treatment".

BTW, RuPaul is a transvestite--he does it for fun (and maybe to shock the prudes and bigots), not out of some "perverse compulsion".

Did you see on HLN the new "transgendered" 5th grade boy wants to go in the girls bathroom at school? Why should the girls be required to deal with this?

Why should the girls care? When they're using the bathroom, they're concealed in stalls anyway. They're not able to see what kind of genitalia are in use.

Get thee behind me, bigot!

Relevant: Germany restricts stem cell patents