One Fifth of Your Genes Are Patented

Patent law is designed to enable inventors to make a living off of their inventions for a certain period of time and protect other unscrupulous people from stealing his or her ideas. In most cases it works, however, when human genes became patentable it held up some important scientific research. It may seem strange that things that were the product of billions of years of human evolution or were created by God depending on your point of view may be protected by intellectual property but many pharmaceutical companies hold patents on certain areas of the human genome. Because US law operates under the first to invent principle, it makes the whole thing even stranger since no human set out to invent their genetic code.

A study published in Science magzine revealed that one fifth of the genetic code for Homo Sapiens is currently protected by U.S. Law. The reasoning for it is that genes may be valuable research tools for the company or university that discovers them. While it may be true that genes and the molecules that compose them are valuable research material, intellectual property claims can slow the pace of research on various inherited disorders such as Alzheimer's or certain types of cancer.

Instead of merely doing the research once the gene or cause is discovered as it has been in the past, until the patents on genes expire, researchers may have to pay exorbitant sums merely for the privelige of working on that particular bit of human DNA.

Robert Cook-Deagan, director of Duke University's Center for Genome and Ethics law policy said, ""If one institution owns all the rights, it may work well to introduce a new product, but it may also block other uses, including research," he said.

The concern is that a complex web of paperwork involving gene patents and excessive fees charge by companies who make pharmaceuticals will cause research on certain types of diseases to come to a halt until the patents on the genes expire within 17 years. In the past, court rulings have held that products of nature cannot be patented, but the decision was reversed shortly after the human genome project started. Most critics of the decision to make genes patentable do not mind if new medications or medical procedures that come from their research are granted such protections, but worry about the the impact of forcing researchers from companies who do not hold the patents on the gene to pay large fees to the patent holder. Religious leaders condemned the decision but there seems to be no relief in sight

Sources:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/1013_051013_gene_patent_2.html

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/patents.shtml

http://issues.org/14.3/sagoff.htm