But true!
The Supreme Court ruled (unanimously!) that a company could not patent the concept of a test for a naturally occurring gene it had isolated and identified because, basically, that's nature and basic science, not an invention.
Bravo.
Supreme Court: Patents Require ‘An Act of Invention’
UPDATE: Just hours after the Supreme Court ruled today, at least one company announced it would be offering genetic testing on the BRCA genes for $995—barely one quarter of the approximately $4000 Myriad charges for the same tests.
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You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
😉
I really don't know how I feel about this. Why should a company develop the test? In the grand scheme of things, is a 20 yr monopoly that big a deal? As long as they don't Disney-fy it into perpetuity.
I think the issue was less developing a particular test, but patenting the idea of any test for these particular genes.
And, as the story notes, not only was Myriad making substantial amounts of money on the tests (sufficient as to potentially prohibit some folks from getting it), but having a single lab being able to do any test for a particular thing is bad medicine.