<story><title>Supreme Court rules human genes may not be patented</title><url>http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-says-human-genes-cannot-be-patented/2013/06/13/f7681b22-d436-11e2-b3a2-3bf5eb37b9d0_story.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>grellas</author><text>Like &lt;i&gt;Bilski&lt;/i&gt;, this represents a short-term victory for those favoring patent protection but also shows that the Supreme Court is at least &lt;i&gt;trying&lt;/i&gt; to impose limits on the Federal Circuit&amp;#x27;s idea that basically everything under the sun should be eligible for patent protection.&lt;p&gt;Here is an informed summing up by Dennis Crouch at PatentlyO: &amp;quot;What are the consequences [of the ruling]?  My immediate reaction is that for most practical applications, the Court&amp;#x27;s holding means that even though the broadest possible biotechnology product claims (to the isolated DNA itself) aren&amp;#x27;t going to be patentable, the key elements in making and using a biotechnology-based invention are still going to be protectable via patents (Part III of the Court&amp;#x27;s opinion makes this especially clear).  This will allow researchers and competitors a little bit of wiggle room to design around biotechnology patents because they can use the basic isolated sequence but there will still be substantial limitations on what they can do with that isolated sequence.  For this reason, I&amp;#x27;m skeptical that the Court&amp;#x27;s opinion will have a negative effect on the incentives for creating biotechnology-based applications.  To the contrary: by affirming that cDNA can be patented, it may strengthen the incentives for investing in research in this area.&amp;quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.patentlyo.com&amp;#x2F;patent&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;myriad-isolated-dna-out-cdna-in.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.patentlyo.com&amp;#x2F;patent&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;myriad-isolated-dna-...&lt;/a&gt;)</text></comment>
<story><title>Supreme Court rules human genes may not be patented</title><url>http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-says-human-genes-cannot-be-patented/2013/06/13/f7681b22-d436-11e2-b3a2-3bf5eb37b9d0_story.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>300bps</author><text>Anyone that has used a genetic testing service has seen that they test you for hundreds of genetic disorders and traits.  If not for patents on genes they could test for thousands.&lt;p&gt;For example, the test at 23andme was only able to test for a couple BRCA1 mutations because most of them are patented.  My wife (whose grandmother died at 29 from breast cancer) had to pay $1,500 to get the test done because of these stupid patents.</text></comment>