I've been away awhile and haven't been posting as regularly as in the past. Hence, I wasn't writing on the day the Supreme court issued its ruling in the AMP vs Myriad. Of course, by now you know they said that "a naturally occuring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it was isolated". This of course was in disagreement with what have been done with about 4000 genes over the prior 30 years.
However, the court also ruled that "cDNA is patent eligible because it is not naturally occuring" - at least in the usual case where the introns have been removed. If the original gene or DNA segment happened to have no introns then that cDNA might have some patent eligibility issues too. Not to worry.
By now, few if any gene patents are being filed anymore -- especially after the genome was sequenced and published. The court said you couldn't patent native DNA anymore, but you can patent most cDNA and you may be able to patent method claims related to novel discovered DNA sequences, and you could potentially patent new applications based on knowledge of novel genes. And you might also be able to patent DNA sequences where the natural sequence has been altered.
So no doom and gloom. Those who wanted it recognized that native DNA sequences are products of nature and should not be patent eligible got their way. And those who derive information and applications from these sequences have a way to protect their commercial value. On balance, the world will continue to move on and all the doomsayers can stop now. Plus the cost of BRCA tests look like they will drop slightly for those who found the previous price to be an impediment.
See here, here, here, here, here, and here for more blog posts on this topic.

