Patent On Breast Cancer Gene Suggests It Is Manmade.

Something is fishy in NSA pal state UTAH>

The so-called “breast cancer gene” that spurred Angelina Jolie to get a preventative double mastectomy is also at the center of a huge patent dispute in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Jolie carries a gene called BRCA1, which dramatically increases a woman’s risk for developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer.

As strange as it might sound, Utah biotech company Myriad Genetics owns the patent to BRCA1 and another so-called isolated gene that carries similar risks called BRCA2

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/angelina-jolies-breast-cancer-gene-at-center-of-patent-case-2013-5#ixzz2TJ6PFFFf

How does someone patent a supposedly natural occurring gene? Because they are manmade!

Many scientists cheered last year when a federal judge ruled that human genes couldn’t be patented. The case involved Myriad Genetics, which holds the patent rights on two genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, that are associated with increased risks for breast and ovarian cancer. Thanks to these patents, you can’t look these genes in your own body without paying a fee to Myriad. Sounds ridiculous, right? Well, that was the state of gene patents until last May, when judge Robert Sweet ruled that the Myriad’s patents were invalid.

But now the courts have reversed themselves again. In a 105-page decision, two federal judges decided that the whole matter comes down to the meaning of the word “isolated.” I kid you not.

Judge Sweet’s ruling last year was based on the obvious scientific fact that genes are a product of nature, not an invention, and therefore they could not be patented. Patent lawyers were very upset over Sweet’s ruling. Why was this controversial? Well, because the U.S. Patent and Trade Office has been granting gene patents for decades. Basically, once the USPTO decided to allow one gene patent, they never looked back, and they’ve now given out patents for over 4,000 human genes

But this past week, an appeals court reversed last year’s ruling and said yes, Myriad Genetics does indeed own the rights to the BRCA genes. The decision by Judge Alan Lourie reveals an astounding lack of understanding of DNA, genes, and genomes. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I had been hopeful that after the earlier ruling throwing out these patents, science and logic would prevail. I guess I should never underestimate the scientific ignorance of judges, though I should add that one of the three judges voted against his colleagues.

What was their contorted reasoning? They decided that “isolated DNA” is not the same as the natural DNA in your body, and that this distinction allows companies to patent it

.http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2011/07/31/private-companies-own-your-dna-again/

Read that last line carefully. Isolated DNA, is not the same as natural DNA. OK, then it’s manmade. It’s the only logical conclusion.

The 1970s marked the first time when scientists patented methods on their biotechnological inventions with recombinant DNA. It wasn’t until 1980 that patents for whole-scale living organisms were permitted. In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Diamond v. Chakrabarty, upheld the first patent on a newly created living organism, a bacterium for digesting crude oil in oil spills

The patent examiner for the United States Patent and Trademark Office had rejected the patent of a living organism, but Chakrabarty appealed. As a rule, raw natural material is generally rejected for patent approval by the USPTO. The Court ruled that as long as the organism is truly “man-made,” such as through genetic engineering, then it is patentable. Because the DNA of Chakrabarty’s organism was modified, it was patentable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_patent