[pp.int.general] Criminal patents

[Daniel Riaño]

Mark Skolnick (Myriad Genetics) is coming back into court once again
to defend his company's exclusive rights over clinical tests and
scientific research over two mutated genes of human DNA (BRCA1 and
BRCA2), responsible of some form of breast cancer. This time it is the
American Civil Liberties Union who is raising the vital question of
whether is it possible to patent molecules found in nature
(specifically in our bodies). The case against Myriad Genetics and its
partners will be held at the US Supreme Court on April 15. Mark
Skolnick and friends will presumably start one new jeremiad about the
need to defend the right to patent genes in order to foster scientific
innovation in the face of the fact that (aside the point that their
research was aided by public founds as well) their copyrights are
making clinical testing and research expensive, thus pulling apart
patients from a cure (and from their money)

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6e93c6fa-9180-11e2-b839-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=crm/email/2013327/nbe/Analysis/product#axzz2Oj1Ov4U6