Surprise District Court Ruling Invalidates Myriad Genetics' BRCA Patents, But Appeal is Pending

摘要

On the afternoon of Monday, March 29, 2010, patent attorneys, patent holders, and venture capitalists with interests in patents on human genes sat up straight in their big black leather chairs.What got their attention was the just-released opinion of Judge Robert W. Sweet, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, In Association for Molecular Pathology, et al v. United States Patent and Trademark Office, et al.Plaintiffs, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Public Patent Foundation (PUB-PAT), on May 12,2009, challenged the legality of Myriad Genetics' patents on the human BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.Mutations in these genes confer an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Myriad Genetics markets the BRACAnalysis test, which identifies these mutations by sequencing the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes and comparing them with their "wild-type" counterparts.