A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Thursday that "naturally occurring" DNA segments cannot be patented. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion for the court in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics. The case was argued on April 15, which means the opinion was a relatively quick turnaround for the court.
The ruling in the closely-watched case is a victory for civil liberties and consumer groups that argued corporations should not be able to lock up the uses of new DNA that could benefit patients if widely available. The Myriad patents at issue in the case were for BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene segments which, when mutated, can increase the risk for breast and ovarian cancer. Myriad developed diagnostic tests from the segments that could reveal cancer risk in women.
