

US Supreme Court says human DNA cannot be patented (2013) - pierre-renaux
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-22895161

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molbioguy
This was debated here last year:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5874274](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5874274)

The cDNA part baffled me and many molecular biologists I know back then (and
still does). I tend to think that either 1) the court didn't understand the
science or 2) they did but were unwilling to destroy an industry so they found
a loophole.

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shmerl
It was already reported a while ago. And the ruling is rather silly.
Artificially created DNA is suddenly patentable just because it was created
artificially? It doesn't make any sense.

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qntmfred
13 June 2013

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elangoc
Yes, it's about time! But I don't understand the cDNA-is-patentable portion of
the ruling -- if I isolate human RNA (finally declared to be a work of
nature), and make cDNA off of it using RNA transcriptase (did I get that
right?), then that's somehow patentable, but the DNA/RNA that it's based off
of isn't? That seems contradictory

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jimworm
Reverse transcriptase. mRNA, and therefore cDNA, could have things like
introns excised.

Still, that's like saying "A zip file can't be copyrighted, but whoever
manages to copy the contents once it's been decoded by a third party can
copyright the contents." The judgement does not seem to understand that cDNA
libraries could be constructed relatively trivially nowadays with hardly a
creative thought, with apologies to those who earned their postgraduate
degrees doing such a thing.

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userbinator
> Myriad, based in Salt Lake City, argued that the genes in question had been
> "isolated" by the company, making them products of human ingenuity and
> therefore patentable.

That's like saying "I chopped off a branch of a tree, therefore I can patent
the branch of the tree because I 'isolated' it."

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sethwm
This applies to human DNA only? Plant seeds don't get protection?

