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It is perhaps unexpected that the United States — the oft-lampooned home of patents on peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and ways to swing a swing — is emerging as one of the most hostile towards patents on naturally occurring genes.
Last week, Australia had the opportunity to join the United States in taking a dim view on such licensing of nature. But a federal court there instead upheld a patent claim on the cancer-associated gene BRCA1. In doing so, the country remains with Canada, Japan and several countries in the European Union, all of which, unlike the United States, recognize such patents.
The patent on BRCA1 has become a touchstone in the debate over ‘gene patents’, a broad term that can cover a wide swath of patent claims on DNA sequences. Certain mutations in BRCA1 increase the risk of, in particular, breast and ovarian cancers. And Myriad Genetics, a genetic-testing company in Salt Lake City, Utah, has aggressively defended its patents, which cover the abnormal BRCA1 sequence and tests to identify it.
In the United States, debate on gene...