Gene patent judgment: isolated DNAs can be patented

In a sweeping development regarding gene patent on Friday, a U.S. appeals court has approved patents on isolated human genes downplaying a lower court’s verdict. Making the groundbreaking judgment, Alan Lourie, one judge of the three-member panel stated that isolated human genes are significantly different from the genes in the body. And so, the isolated DNAs can be patented.

The judgment got realized two-to-one in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, a court that specializes in patent cases. The verdict came in the Myriad Genetics’ lawsuit seeking patents on two genes to detect whether woman has an increased threat of getting breast cancer.   

The judgment has certainly stunned the biotechnology industry. Many biotechnology scientists are shocked to hear the news on the patenting of human genes. Meanwhile, it is against the Obama administration’s stand that human genes could not be patented. Several human right organizations have also been against the patenting of human genes.

“The ability to visualize a DNA molecule through a microscope, or by any other means, when it is bonded to other genetic material, is worlds apart from possessing an isolated DNA molecule that is in hand and usable,” Lourie has written in the judgment note, according to San Francisco Chronicle.

In fact, the decision was against the policy the U.S. Patent Office has been following for several decades. But the judgment will indeed bring up some massive developments in the biotechnology industry, however. Anyway, the case will stretch to the Supreme Court.