Correspondence

摘要

On 13 June, the US Supreme Court denied the validity of patenting genes (Nature 498, 281-282; 2013) - but this is only part of the story. Since 2010, the court has made three separate landmark rulings that give inventors full access to the wellspring of ideas, laws of nature and natural products. Patent law requires ingenuity and invention for patenting a discovery. The Supreme Court established in 1980 that genetically modifying cells to eat oil, resist pesticides or produce insulin, for example, was a patentable invention.