Supreme Court strikes down patents for natural DNA sequences!

[thewayne]

YES! And a unanimous ruling! It's always been understood that things in nature cannot be patented, I don't know why the patent office didn't reject applications like this from the beginning. But it's well-known that the U.S. patent office is underfunded and understaffed and unable to keep up with the rapid rate of change in new tech fields.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/06/13/1550225/supreme-court-no-patents-for-natural-dna-sequences

Comments

[moiraj.livejournal.com]

I'm so relieved. I thought it was insane that the idea of patenting DNA got anywhere in the first place.

At one of the court houses I worked in, the staff had given up trying to tell people - usually the unrepresented - that they couldn't file this or that. The hassle was too much and they just let the judge handle it. Unfortunately, that often resulted in the other side having to pay legal fees to fight the stuff that shouldn't have been filed.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Sort of the classic 'you can sue anyone for anything' regardless of the merits. I occasionally get emails from my dad and others about 'this guy is suing Obama because he knows the truth, and Obama is shutting him down!', while they ignore the fact that the guy basically has no life and spends his life filing frivolous lawsuits and representing himself.

[silveradept]

And this is why the patent office needs experts in their proper fields. Which probably means they should pay the examiners more and the legislators less.