{"id":856,"date":"2009-12-11T19:40:40","date_gmt":"2009-12-12T00:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.charleswmoore.org\/wordpress\/?p=856"},"modified":"2009-12-11T19:40:40","modified_gmt":"2009-12-12T00:40:40","slug":"856","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.charleswmoore.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/2009\/12\/11\/856\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A case currently in federal court questions whether it should be possible to patent genetic sequences. At issue is whether Utah-based Myriad Genetics, a biotech company, should be allowed to hold patents on genes known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, which are linked to increased risk of developing breast cancer. Although courts have held that &#8220;products of nature&#8221; and &#8220;laws of nature&#8221; are not patentable, the US Patent Office has been awarding patents involving genetic sequences for over 20 years. Currently, thousands of genetic sequences have been patented.\u00a0<br style=\"padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\" \/><br style=\"padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\" \/>In May of this year, the ACLU organized a lawsuit,\u00a0<em style=\"padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">Association For Molecular Pathology et al v. United States Patent and Trademark Office et al<\/em>, seeking to have the Myriad patents thrown out. Part of their argument centers on the US Constitution, which gives Congress power &#8220;to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.&#8221; Because the gene patents hinder scientific progress, the lawsuit argues, the Patent and Trademark Office acted against the Constitution in granting those patents.<\/p>\n<p>There is a link to this US <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencefriday.com\/\">Science Friday<\/a> site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A case currently in federal court questions whether it should be possible to patent genetic sequences. At issue is whether Utah-based Myriad Genetics, a biotech company, should be allowed to hold patents on genes known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, which are linked to increased risk of developing breast cancer. Although courts have held that &#8220;products [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charleswmoore.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charleswmoore.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charleswmoore.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charleswmoore.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charleswmoore.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.charleswmoore.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":857,"href":"http:\/\/www.charleswmoore.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856\/revisions\/857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charleswmoore.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charleswmoore.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charleswmoore.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}