The American Civil Liberties Union, Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) and U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal were in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. today urging the court to uphold a lower court ruling that patents on two human genes are illegal.
"The human gene is a product of nature and no more patentable than a human kidney,” said Chris Hansen, staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project who argued on behalf of the plaintiffs today. “The district court ruling striking down patents on human genes was a victory for the free flow of ideas and information, and could lead to important medical and scientific advances. The appeals court should uphold that ruling.”
The ACLU and PUBPAT brought a lawsuit in May 2009 against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Myriad Genetics and the University of Utah Research Foundation, which hold the patents on two human genes related to hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, BRCA1 and BRCA2. The lawsuit charges that the patents restrict both scientific research and patients' access to medical care, and that patents on human genes are illegal because genes are "products of nature." The groups brought the case on behalf of breast cancer and women's health groups, individual women, geneticists and scientific associations representing approximately 150,000 researchers, pathologists and laboratory professionals.
Read the full press release.
Read more about the case.
