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Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]

supremecourt.gov

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Re: Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]

#3

Post by mpyne »

Unanimous judgment, though Scalia concurred in part and filed a separate opinion.

Myriad kind of still wins as their cDNA synthesis technique is affirmed patentable, which would presumably be used in conjunction with a patient's own BRCA genes to determine their cancer risk. So the precise test itself appears patented still, but now other companies can make use of the BRCA genes themselves, perhaps to develop other treatments that don't use the cDNA synthesis technique.

Re: Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]

#5

Post by jweese »

mpyne wrote: post #3

Unanimous judgment, though Scalia concurred in part and filed a separate opinion. Myriad kind of still wins as their cDNA synthesis technique is affirmed patentable, which would presumably be used in conjunction with a patient's own BRCA genes to determine their cancer risk. So the precise test itself appears patented still, but now other companies can make use of the BRCA genes themselves, perhaps to develop other t…

Justice Scalia's concurrence, reproduced here in full:

"I join the judgment of the Court, and all of its opinion except Part I–A and some portions of the rest of the opinion going into fine details of molecular biology. I am unable to affirm those details on my own knowledge or even my own belief. It suffices for me to affirm, having studied the opinions below and the expert briefs presented here, that the portion of DNA isolated from its natural state sought to be patented is identical to that portion of the DNA in its natural state; and that complementary DNA (cDNA) is a synthetic creation not normally present in nature."

Re: Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]

#7

Post by unmei »

mpyne wrote: post #3

Unanimous judgment, though Scalia concurred in part and filed a separate opinion. Myriad kind of still wins as their cDNA synthesis technique is affirmed patentable, which would presumably be used in conjunction with a patient's own BRCA genes to determine their cancer risk. So the precise test itself appears patented still, but now other companies can make use of the BRCA genes themselves, perhaps to develop other t…

But they surely don't have a patent on all cDNA synthesis techniques, especially given that that is a highly generic technique (it should fall under the "obvious from previous art" criteria). So other companies should be able to utilize a cDNA as well so long as they don't simply follow the Myriad protocol?

Re: Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]

#8

Post by jweese »

unmei wrote: post #7
mpyne wrote: post #3

Unanimous judgment, though Scalia concurred in part and filed a separate opinion. Myriad kind of still wins as their cDNA synthesis technique is affirmed patentable, which would presumably be used in conjunction with a patient's own BRCA genes to determine their cancer risk. So the precise test itself appears patented still, but now other companies can make use of the BRCA genes themselves, perhaps to develop other t…

But they surely don't have a patent on all cDNA synthesis techniques, especially given that that is a highly generic technique (it should fall under the "obvious from previous art" criteria). So other companies should be able to utilize a cDNA as well so long as they don't simply follow the Myriad protocol?

I believe they just have a patent on these particular cDNA types, namely cDNA created from BRCA1 or BRCA2, and not on the well-known lab techniques for creating them.

Re: Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]

#9

Post by archgoon »

chris_wot wrote: post #4

You can make synthetic DNA?!?

Yes. This has been around for several decades. Furthermore, you can request companies on the internet to synthesize sequences for you and mail you the results.

(First result from google)

http://www.invitrogen.com/

Wikipedia Article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gene_synthesis

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