European patent office restores breast cancer gene patent

November 20, 2008

The European Patent Office on Wednesday restored on appeal a controversial patent for a breast cancer gene that had been withdrawn from a US biotech firm, but granting it in a more restricted form than before.

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• Szkeptik - Nov 20, 2008
  • Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
  I'm very concerned about the patenting of genes. It might drive research faster as long as there is uncharted territory to discover, but this might bring the advance to a sudden halt with the companies holding on to their own little secrets about genes they own while also driving up the cost of medical care and making it harder to obtain.
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• DrDave - Nov 26, 2008
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  The patenting of gene sequences is an outrage and should not be allowed. No patent holder has invented these sequences, they have just discovered them. A fundamental principle of patenting is that it should encourage invention - if you can build a better mouse trap, you can get around the existing mouse trap patent. These gene patents discourage invention, as it is not possible to get around them - there is only one BRCA1 gene, you can't build a better one.
  I am hopeful that the current progress towards rapid whole-genome sequencing will make all of these patents obsolete: nobody is going to pay for 24,000 different licences to sequence a genome, so these guys will be stuck with their useless patents.
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