WASHINGTON – Chocolate chip cookies. Baseball bats. Amazon plants. Not a game show quiz, but hypotheticals by U.S. Supreme Court justices trying to decide whether human genes should be patented.
The justices heard arguments yesterday in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, a challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union and others to Myriad Genetics Inc.’s patents on two human genes that have mutations indicating a high risk of breast or ovarian cancer. The mutated genes are known as BRCA1 and BRCA2. Myriad’s patents claim exclusive control over those genes, including related diagnostic tests to determine the risk in women.
