04-16-2013, 04:33 PM
the supreme court in the usa is pondering allowing patents for parts of the human genome. should patents be allowed or is it taking patents too far.
from a newspaper
from a newspaper
Quote: Patenting genetic discoveries has proven controversial over the past several years. There are now patents associated with around a quarter of the genes in the human genome. Patents are extremely valuable to those developing products based on genetic discoveries. They are issued to encourage innovation, and provide protection to allow those investing in genetic research the opportunity to maximize the profit from their investment.
However, when patents limit the use of basic genetic information, they threaten to inhibit or limit biomedical research. There are concerns that the large number of patents associated with the human genome will limit the integration of personalized medicine into health care either because of restrictive patents or prohibitive costs. So-called "patent thickets" therefore have the potential to inhibit the translation of genetic discoveries into health care benefits.
Central to the debate over the patenting of genetic discoveries is the question of what criteria should determine whether a discovery is patentable. Are genes part of our collective heritage that should not be patentable at all? Alternatively, if genetic discoveries are patentable, how should a legitimate discovery be defined? Should the isolation and purification of genes from their natural state be a sufficient basis for a patent, or should the applicant be required to demonstrate a use for the discovery?
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the agency that issues patents in the United States, has developed guidelines on the patenting of genetic discoveries. The current guidelines state that identification of a gene's sequence alone is not patentable, but that a gene isolated from its natural state may be patentable if the applicants can demonstrate "specific, substantial and credible utility" for the discovery. See: United States Patent and Trademark Office Utility Examination GuidelinesPDF file [uspto.gov] (2001).
Since its inception, the Human Genome Project and its planners emphasized that in order to reap its maximum benefit, new DNA sequence should be freely available in the public domain. Thus, all sequence information acquired during the Human Genome Project was immediately deposited into databases that can be accessed via the World Wide Web. However, patents on some gene sequences and other types of information derived from genetic sequences have been granted.