Log In | Register
Politics Daily has an article up today asking, "Should Companies Be Allowed To Patent Breast Cancer Gene?"
A collective of lawyers and one breast cancer patient are suing four Australian biotech firms, alleging that the companies can't patent BRCA1, a gene implicated in some breast cancer cases.
"The narrow legal issue is that human genetic material is not patentable because patent law is intended to cover inventions not discoveries," Rebecca Gilsenan, one of the case lawyers, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
The issue goes beyond breast cancer and BRCA1, as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation notes in its article on the subject, "Cancer gene case spooks biotech companies."
Australia's biotechnology industry is warning the court challenge launched today against the patenting of human genetic material could kill off investment in the industry.
[...]
For years, the Australian patent office has been granting patents over genetic information. Gilsenan said the issue has yet to face a legal challenge, but that the lawsuit could transform how Australia governs the practice.
Michelle Gallaher, chief executive of BioMelbourne Network, is one of the biotech company heads expressing the industry's concerns.
"If the case goes through and we're no longer able to patent genes, it throws into question a lot of research and development that may be halted along the pipeline," she said.
"Biotech companies are not going to invest heavily in developing some of these tests if they don't have some degree of the potential for a return on their investment by getting a product to the market and having a degree of monopoly for some period of time."
But patent...law expert Professor Luigi Palombi, from the Australian National University,rejects the claims that removing patents will have a detrimental impact.
"I think it will have the reverse effect, because what it's going to do if we get the decision we want - which is to get rid of patents on genes - what it will do is free up those sorts of materials for use in new and inventive ways," he said.
"We want the biotechnology sector to focus on inventions which will use genes to deliver better diagnostics, better treatments and better cures - well, cure, period.
"That's not going to happen if we're locking up raw fundamental data of the human genome in patents. It just won't happen."
In the USA, a district court recently invalidated patents for BRCA1 and BRCA2, but according to Clinical Oncology News that decision has been appealed.
Is it legal to patent a gene? A lawsuit winding its way through the courts argues that it is not. On March 29, 2010, a judge in a New York federal court agreed and ruled that patents on BRCA1 and BRCA2 are invalid because genes are products of nature. The lawsuit filed last May against Myriad, the maker of the BRCA gene test, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office, is organized by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Public Patent Foundation. The ruling marks the first time a court has found patents on genes unlawful and it makes the future of patents held on other human genes uncertain.
[...]
Myriad hopes the court decision will be reversed. “While we are disappointed that Judge Sweet did not follow prior judicial precedent or Congress’s intent that the Patent Act be broadly construed and applied, we are very confident that the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will reverse this decision and uphold the patent claims being challenged in this litigation,” said Peter Meldrum, President and CEO of Myriad Genetics. “More importantly, we do not believe that the final outcome of this litigation will have a material impact on Myriad’s operations due to the patent protection afforded Myriad by its remaining patents.”
What do you think? Should the patenting of human genetic material, such as cancer genes, be allowed?
