In Australia, Gene Patents Also Subject of High Court Struggle
By Leigh Dayton,
Science
| 04. 19. 2013
The U.S. Supreme Court isn't the only high court considering a precedent-setting case on patenting human genes. Australia's Full Federal Court this week began proceedings in an appeal of an earlier decision that upheld the validity of breast cancer diagnostic tests developed by Myriad Genetics—the same tests that were the subject of
oral argument before the U.S. high court earlier this week.The Australian legal jousting comes as that nation's policymakers pursue a trio of initiatives that could have far-reaching implications for how Australia handles biomedical patents, including those on human genes. On 2 April, a draft report on pharmaceutical patents that calls for limiting the reach of intellectual property (IP) was unveiled. On 5 April, the government released an independent government review of health and medical research that argues for allowing human gene patents. And on 15 April, a new law that updates the country's patent system came into effect, but it mostly sidesteps the gene patenting issue.
Amid this flurry of activity, many eyes are on the court case, which focuses on the validity of patents held by...
Related Articles
By Katie Palmer and Usha Lee McFarling, Stat | 09.03.2024
Photo by Hush Naidoo Jade Photography on Unsplash
Pediatrician Alexandra Epee-Bounya had had enough. In her 20 years caring for children in Boston, she had seen hundreds of kids with suspected urinary tract infections. Each time, she’d turn to a...
By Emily R. Klancher Merchant, Los Angeles Review of Books | 08.22.2024
IN THE Operation Varsity Blues scandal of 2019, 50 wealthy parents were charged with trying to get their children into elite universities through fraudulent means. The story dramatically demonstrated the lengths to which some parents will go to ensure their...
By Julia Brown, The Conversation | 08.16.2024
With their primary goal to advance scientific knowledge, most scientists are not trained or incentivized to think through the societal implications of the technologies they are developing. Even in genomic medicine, which is geared toward benefiting future patients, time and...
By Antonio Regalado, MIT Technology Review | 08.22.2024
In 2016, I attended a large meeting of journalists in Washington, DC. The keynote speaker was Jennifer Doudna, who just a few years before had co-invented CRISPR, a revolutionary method of changing genes that was sweeping across biology labs because...