Patents & Other IP

Patents, along with laws and court decisions regarding intellectual property, can constrain or catalyze the development, marketing, and use of human biotechnologies. Two developments in 1980 dramatically influenced the development of biotechnology in the U.S.: Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act, which transformed how inventions developed from federally-funded research are managed; and the Supreme Court ruled in Diamond v. Chakrabarty that living things, including genes, could be patented. However, the Supreme Court decision Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics in 2013 ruled that merely isolating human genes does not make them patentable.

Controversies and court cases about intellectual property have included lawsuits contesting ownership of biological tissues and genetic information; challenges by Indigenous communities trying to protect traditional knowledge; and disputes about patents on CRISPR gene-editing technology. 

Biopolitical Times

Two prominent groups of scientists, and two major American universities, are trying to patent methods for editing human embryos, with reproductive use clearly intended. Really. Right now.

Heritable genome editing – that is, altering the genes and traits of future children and generations – is prohibited in 70 countries and wildly controversial everywhere. But these people and institutions are laying the groundwork to capitalize on a future they apparently hope to make happen. This summary of what we currently know...

Biopolitical Times

Editors note: This article was originally published on ourbodiesourselves.org and is reposted here with generous permission from Our Bodies Our Selves.

Six years ago, on June 13, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court in AMP v. Myriad took a great step forward for women’s health by unanimously ruling that human genes could not be patented. Now a bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives have released a bill that would allow companies to own our genes once again.

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Next month, researchers, policymakers, ethicists and social scientists will meet in Hong Kong for the second International Summit on Human...

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In the course of just under two months that started 40 years ago this week, five events occurred that shaped...

Portrait that frames a person in a business suit's upper body. They hold a sign in front of them, which reads in bold letters "Read the fine print."

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An Orphan Black promotional poster, featuring two side by side portraits of a woman, with the headline "I am not your property" and "I am not your weapon."

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A laboratory scientist's right arm is shown, using a multi-channel pipette.

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A strand of DNA is featured. The upper right corner is highlighted.

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Three cotton swabs lay inside of a DNA testing kit.

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A female scientist looks closely at a dye marker on agarose gel used to separate DNA

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