US supreme court rules companies cannot patent human genes
Essene of Patenting is something that you create and not something that already exists (whether discovered or not)
Could anybody patent electricity ?
Creation can be patented and not discovery
Human genes exists, only must be discovered .. if not today by somebody, for sure tomorrow by somebody else
In that sense, all those genes of corn and fish and beans and and and, they not patentable, they already exists, nobody made them
The court held that human DNA was a "product of nature", a basic tool of scientific and technological work, thereby placing it beyond the domain of patent protection. It struck down patents held by Myriad Genetics Inc, a Utah company, on two genes linked to a higher risk of breast and ovarian cancer.
But it also said that synthetic genetic material could be patented, in a mixed ruling for the biotechnology industry that has argued that patents are necessary to recoup the billions of dollars it spends on research.
Justices, 9-0, Bar Patenting Human Genes
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