The Myriad Decision

I was off the end of last week so missed the Myriad decision.  As most expected, the appeals court affirmed their earlier decision that isolated DNA was patent eligible (not necessarily would receive a patent however -- note the distinction). 

This decision evokes widely varying emotions and reasonable people certainly disagree. For the moment though, the decision largely leaves the last thirty years status quo intact and patents can be used to protect isolated gene sequences.  This of course makes the biotech industry and its investors happy.

But, we can all expect this to end up in the Supreme Court one more time for its final hearing. Until then, read some commentary and discussion on the case from In the Pipeline, Patent Docs blog and Pharmalot. 

Also, if you are on the side that wants the policy to change -- then you ought to be advocating through your elected Congressional leaders and not expect the Courts to change 30 years of established law.

Posted by Bruce Lehr Aug 20th 2012.

Comments

[bigredbruce]

More on this today from Fierce Biotech http://www.fiercebiotech.com/story/gene-patent-ruling-seen-win-myriad-biotech-industry/2012-08-17?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss