I heard the story on NPR this morning, and they reported it as if the Supreme Court had simply ruled human genes weren't patentable and that was that. It sounded like a blow to Myriad.
I read the actual opinion, and there's a lot more to it than that. The Supreme Court said naturally-occurring genes aren't patentable, even in isolated form. They also explicitly said that cDNAs were patentable, and noted that the decision doesn't address new applications of knowledge about humans genes, or patentability of natural genes were the order of nucleotides has been changed. They also left open methods of use (i.e. if I isolate a human gene and develop a diagnostic method to it, I can patent that method and still have a "monopoly" on the diagnostic method).
While news reports first cast it as a lose for Myriad, I'm not surprised to see that their stock went up after the ruling. The decision leaves a lot of room open for Myriad and others to make money off patents related to human genes in one way or another.
I don't know about you guys, but I could see some very interesting stories related to all of this. They'd be science fiction, I suppose, though I bet you could make metaphors for it in a fantasy setting.
I read the actual opinion, and there's a lot more to it than that. The Supreme Court said naturally-occurring genes aren't patentable, even in isolated form. They also explicitly said that cDNAs were patentable, and noted that the decision doesn't address new applications of knowledge about humans genes, or patentability of natural genes were the order of nucleotides has been changed. They also left open methods of use (i.e. if I isolate a human gene and develop a diagnostic method to it, I can patent that method and still have a "monopoly" on the diagnostic method).
While news reports first cast it as a lose for Myriad, I'm not surprised to see that their stock went up after the ruling. The decision leaves a lot of room open for Myriad and others to make money off patents related to human genes in one way or another.
I don't know about you guys, but I could see some very interesting stories related to all of this. They'd be science fiction, I suppose, though I bet you could make metaphors for it in a fantasy setting.