Supreme Court says natural human genes can't be patented

[Recursion]

Source: NBC

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that natural human genes cannot be patented by companies, but it said that synthetic genetic material can — a mixed ruling for the biotechnology industry.

A naturally occurring piece of DNA is “a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated,” the court said.

The case centered on a Salt Lake City company called Myriad Genetics that was granted patents for isolating two genes, known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, that indicate a higher risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

The company now markets tests for those genes.
BRCA1 is the gene carried by actress Angelina Jolie, who chose after a test to have a double mastectomy.

Read more: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/13/18935727-supreme-court-says-natural-human-genes-cant-be-patented?lite

---

Seems to be a narrow but unanimous ruling

[leftyohiolib]

1. "natural human genes" are there un-natural human genes

[timdog44]

2. In my town.

There would be no DNA testing here because it is all so the same.

[Recursion]

3. Modified genes can be patented

As can techniques for isolating natural genes. But Myriad lost the claim to hold a patent on knowing that this gene does what it does (cause breast cancer, I think).

[bobclark86]

5. When someone engineers something, yeah n/t

[leftyohiolib]

7. i dont see a "manufactured" gene as human product

[msanthrope]

30. Why not? nt

[GreenStormCloud]

9. Yes. Humans can be GMOed just like any other life-form.

If some company modifies a human gene for hair color so that it makes green hair, then that could be patented.

[rhett o rick]

24. Maybe, but that information is classified. nm

[Lint Head]

4. The news reader said the statement said that something created by nature can't be patented. Then how

can Monsanto patent plants and sue people for using natural seed.

[Recursion]

6. Monsanto has modified the plants. Also,

as I'm reading this, SCOTUS is placing a greater burden on patents about human DNA than other kinds. But let's wait for the full commentary to come in.

[kristopher]

10. I listened to the arguments on NPR

That is the case: something created by nature cannot be patented. Period.

Our understanding of what Monsanto is doing must be flawed in some way.

[elleng]

15. “A naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible

merely because it has been isolated,”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/us/supreme-court-rules-human-genes-may-not-be-patented.html?hp

[OmahaBlueDog]

21. No, but Monsanto has sued (and won) for people naturally reproducing and reselling their seed

(Dec. 19, 2001 – CropChoice news) – The following is an analysis of last week’s Supreme Court decision in the case of PIONEER HI-BRED INTERNATIONAL v. J.E.M. AG SUPPLY, FARM ADVANTAGE, et al. 534 U.S. (2001). After the analysis, you’ll find a letter that North Dakota farmer Rodney Nelson wrote to North Dakota Sens. Dorgan and Conrad and Rep. Pomeroy about this decision and about the issue of seed saving.

by the International Center for Technology Assessment

In February, 1998, Pioneer Hi-Bred International sued a small Iowa seed and agricultural supply company named Farm Advantage, its co-owner Marvin Redenius, and several of its sales representatives for infringement of seventeen (17) Pioneer hybrid (non-genetically engineered) corn seed plant patents. The legal action alleged that Farm Advantage purchased corn seed from licensed Pioneer seed dealers and then offered the seed for resale. Pioneer claims that unauthorized resale of its corn seed violates its patents because the company only allows authorized Pioneer sales representative to sell the seed.

In responding to the law suit, Farm Advantage raised numerous defenses including a fundamental challenge to the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s ("PTO&quot decision to allow the patenting of plants. Farm Advantage claims that its resale did not infringe on Pioneer’s patent because the patents were invalid as a matter of law.

The case J.E.M. Ag Supply, Inc. Farm Advantage, et al. v. Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.. ("Farm Advantage&quot was heard by the Supreme Court in the October 2001 term. With this case the Court was faced with the straightforward issue of whether the PTO had illegally extended "utility" patent protection rights, under §101 of the Patent Act, to sexually reproducing plants. (Section, §101, of the Patent Act defines what products can obtain a utility patent.) In a 1985 decision, Ex Parte Hibberd, the PTO decided, without congressional approval, to extend patent protection to seeds. Since that time it has granted more than two thousand seed patents.

http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstrya594.html



(I posted this in another thread a few days ago)

[Lint Head]

26. This is really interesting. I think there is a chance that the Monsanto fiasco can be changed.

This is an opportunity for an eager constitutional lawyer to make a name for himself. Monsanto is endangering the health of human beings with their products. Plants are naturally produced by nature and so are human beings.

[freshwest]

23. They don't. They sue people when their unwanted GMO crops cross pollinates and changes crops.

Once your crop has taken in the DNA from the GMO, it's no longer natural. The fact that you didn't want it, has not been an issue in court. Just that it's there.

It is a large part of some farmers' objection to GMO labeling. They have to prove that everything they grow with their own natural seed has NOT been contaminated. It is a costly process to search the DNA. It would be multiplied many times over for each batch of produce they need to sell to keep in business.

Monsanto sues them on the basis they stole their product, as they have patented their wonder seed. Grossly unfair thing to do when it's been released into the wind and no one can stop it.

They should be run out of business for this, and other business practices and the products they sell.

JMHO.

[NBachers]

8. If Monsanto spreads their synthetic genetic material into our bodies they own us? Do we owe them?

The same way their patented plant genetic material has spread to innocent crops?

[dipsydoodle]

12. We'd owe them a prison cell.

.

[rhett o rick]

25. "Monsanto spreads their synthetic genetic material into our bodies" ewwww.

I feel so violated.

[proverbialwisdom]

32. 'Horizontal gene transfer' risks nauseatingly examined in new book I have just learned.

Googled 'horizontal gene transfer' for link to now relatively quaint gut bacteria/colostomy study (first link which follows and also #11, below),
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/resources/documents/science/SA/GM%20research%20a%20gut%20feeling.pdf
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/horizontalGeneTransfer.php

explored the second link and found detailed summary of new book available for pre-order. 'Horizontal gene transfer' has been and is being extensively studied, apparently. BRAVO.

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Ban_GMOs_Now.php

PREFACE

The GM battle intensifies

The industry-funded International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) claims that the global area of genetically modified (GM) crops reached 170.3 m hectares (420 m acres) in 2012; a 100-fold increase since commercialization began in 1996; and “the fastest adopted crop technology in the history of modern agriculture” [1].

However, GM crops are still confined to 28 countries, with nearly 90 % planted in just five. USA’s 69.5 m ha tops the list at 40.8 % of the total area; Brazil and Argentina with 36.6 and 23.9 m ha account for 21.5 % and 14.0 % respectively; and Canada and India with 11.6 and 10.8 m ha account for 6.8 % and 6.3 % respectively. Herbicide (glyphosate) tolerant crops comprise nearly 60 %, Bt crops 15% and stacked traits 25 %. The major crops are just three: herbicide tolerant soybean (47 %) maize (Bt 4%, stacked traits 23 %) and cotton (Bt 11 %, stacked traits 2%).

GM remains limited to two traits in three major crops that are largely kept out of most of the world.

One main reason is its inability to deliver really useful traits...

The other reason is that resistance to GM crops and GMOs (genetically modified organisms including transgenic trees, fish and livestock) has been growing simultaneously worldwide as the failures and hazards are coming to light behind the corporate propaganda.

<>

New genetics & hazards of genetic modification

The rationale and impetus for genetic engineering and genetic modification was the ‘central dogma’ of molecular biology that assumed DNA carries all the instructions for making an organism. This is contrary to the reality of the fluid and responsive genome that already has come to light since the early 1980s. Instead of linear causal chains leading from DNA to RNA to protein and downstream biological functions, complex feed-forward and feed-back cycles interconnect organism and environment at all levels, marking and changing RNA and DNA down the generations. In order to survive, the organism needs to engage in natural genetic modification in real time, an exquisitely precise molecular dance of life with RNA and DNA responding to and participating fully in ‘downstream’ biological functions. That is why organisms and ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to the crude, artificial genetically modified RNA and DNA created by human genetic engineers. It is also why genetic modification can probably never be safe.

1. Genetic modification done by human genetic engineers is anything but precise; it is uncontrollable and unpredictable, introducing many collateral damage to the host genome as well as new transcripts, proteins and metabolites that could be harmful.

2. GM feed with very different transgenes have been shown to be harmful to a wide range of species, by farmers in the field and independent scientists working in the lab, indicating that genetic modification itself is unsafe.

3. Genetic modification done by human genetic engineers is different from natural genetic modification done by organisms themselves for the following reasons: it relies on making unnatural GM constructs designed to cross species barriers and jump into genomes; it combines and transfers genes between species that would never have exchanged genes in nature; GM constructs tend to be unstable and hence more prone to further horizontal gene transfer after it has integrated into the genome.

4. Horizontal gene transfer and recombination is a major route for creating new viruses and bacteria that cause diseases and spreading drug and antibiotic resistance. Transgenic DNA is especially dangerous because the GM constructs are already combinations of sequences from diverse bacteria and viruses that cause diseases, and contain antibiotic resistance marker genes.

5. There is experimental evidence that transgenes are much more likely to spread and to transfer horizontally.

6. The instability of the GM construct is reflected in the instability of transgenic varieties due to both transgene silencing and the loss of transgenes, for which abundant evidence exists. Transgenic instability makes a mockery of ‘event-specific’ characterization and risk assessment, because any change in transgene expression, or worse, rearrangement or movement of the transgenic DNA insert(s) would create another transgenic plant different from the one that was characterized and risk assessed. And it matters little how thoroughly the original characterization and risk assessment may have been done. Unstable transgenic lines are illegal, they should not be growing commercially, and they are not eligible for patent protection.

7. There is abundant evidence for horizontal transfer of transgenic DNA from plant to bacteria in the lab and it is well known that transgenic DNA can persist in debris and residue in the soil long after the crops have been cultivated. At least 87 species (2 % of all known species) of bacteria can take up foreign DNA and integrate it into their genome; the frequency of that happening being greatly increased when a short homologous anchor sequence is present.

8. The frequency at which transgenic DNA transfers horizontal has been routinely underestimated because the overwhelming majority of natural bacteria cannot be cultured. Using direct detection methods without the need to culture, substantial gene transfers were observed on the surface of intact leaves as well as on rotting damaged leaves.

9. In the only monitoring experiment carried out with appropriate molecular probes so far, China has detected the spread of a GM antibiotic resistance gene to bacteria in all of its major rivers; suggesting that horizontal gene transfer has contributed to the recent rise in antibiotic resistance in animals and humans in the country.

10. GM DNA has been found to survive digestion in the gut of mice, the rumen of sheep and duodenum of cattle and to enter the blood stream.

11. In the only feeding trial carried out on humans, the complete 2 266 bp of the epsps transgene in Roundup Ready soybean flour was recovered from the colostomy bag in 6 out of 7 ileostomy subjects. In 3 out of 7 subjects, bacteria cultured from the contents of the colostomy bag were positive for the GM soya transgene, showing that horizontal transfer of the transgene had occurred; but no bacteria were positive for any natural soybean genes.

12. The gastrointestinal tract of mammals is a hotspot for horizontal gene transfer between bacteria, transfer beginning in the mouth.

13. Evidence is emerging that genomes of higher plants and animals may be even softer targets for horizontal gene transfer than genomes of bacteria.

<>

MORE.

[djean111]

11. What was sickening was the argument that if a company could not patent a gene,

it would not spend money looking for cures.
That is blackmail. Profit on the test and treatment.
Has anyone tried to patent a cancer cell?
And the argument that Myriad had already spent a lot of money, or that people who invested in Myriad would lose money - so they should be able to patent the gene - people who can argue this are soulless.

[Poll_Blind]

13. Does that imply that if a company patents a modified human gene and it is later found that...

...some example of human DNA, somewhere, had that modification, that it would be considered prior art?



PB

[Ratty]

18. Also, since they can patent genetically engineered versions ...

Can another company genetically engineer their own version of the exact gene and patent it? Or would that be an infringement of the original patent? I'm guessing this means nobody else can. Once a company creates a GM version of a human gene nobody else is allowed to. I wonder if this will set off an arms race of companies genetically engineering as many genes as possible in as short a time as possible just so they can get there first.

[Posteritatis]

27. If they're chemically identical, they can't

That's one of the redlines the ruling set. They can patent the process by which they made a copy if that's new - and fair enough in that case as they've created something in the process itself - but presumably the rest of the process would fall under the same basic idea as a patented tool or other process. If you try to patent a copy there's prior art out there, and probably an incoming justifiable infringement suit as well.

[elleng]

14. Glad this was posted earlier.

Here's locked post w NYT article:

Source: nyt

“A naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for a unanimous court. But manipulating a gene to create something not found in nature is an invention eligible for patent protection.

The case concerned patents held by Myriad Genetics, a Utah company, on genes that correlate with increased risk of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/us/supreme-court-rules-human-genes-may-not-be-patented.html?hp&_r=0

[CarmanK]

16. 9-0 DECISION in favor of the people, what a surprise from this no justice SCOTUS.

[Posteritatis]

28. It's an astonishing, wonderful ruling. Totally made my day. (nt)

[eppur_se_muova]

17. from the BBC . ..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22895161

[Javaman]

19. "a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated"

Okay, let's think about this.

in reference to many peoples questions regarding Monsanto.

He's a "what-if" situation...

Monsanto's genetically modified soy bean seed gets blown into a neighboring field that is non-GMO.

Nature creates a hybrid between the gmo and the non-gmo.

Is that hybrid still covered under the ruling?

[Posteritatis]

29. A not-too-broad reading of the ruling would suggest that it wouldn't be.

The alternative - that a new thing can be autopatented by virtue of association with an existing patented organism - is the sort of precedent even the cracksmokingest federal courts would be hesitant to put in place.

Monsanto would probably be able to beat up the neighboring farmer in other judicial ways, but that particular door just got a lot more difficult to jump through. This is a huge change in gene patent powers compared to what we had a day ago.

[derby378]

20. Now THIS is progress

Some really bad biotech rulings have been made by judges who didn't have a decent appreciation of science. As the husband of an ovarian cancer survivor (she was diagnosed before I ever met her), I hail this as a step in the right direction.

[progressoid]

22. WTF? The supreme court did something right?

[eridani]

31. Surprised and pleased

Mindboggling--maybe they'll do at least on other good thing this year?

[proverbialwisdom]

33. More.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023008531