"There will be arguments about whether this ruling will be good for patients; I would say yes. The broad area of diagnostic testing is unduly hampered by gene patents and they are not necessary for the development of diagnostic genetic tests. This ruling, if upheld, will open the field of genetic diagnostics in time for the benefits of robust analytic techniques like whole genome sequencing to be applied for patient benefit," Evans says.

"While one can argue that the patent incentive may serve a more useful purpose in the realm of therapeutics, most useful therapeutic patents are considerably "downstream" of the genes themselves so I doubt that one will see any significant deleterious effect of such a ruling on therapeutics either. In broad terms I think this is a win for both patients and their providers," Evans says.

"The issue of gene patenting has been controversial since the United States Patent and Trademark Office first granted them. Such controversy and furor have arisen in part because people tend to perceive genes as different from other biological entities," Evans says. "They are something we all share and they encode information that is unique to each of us as individuals. Thus it is difficult at some basic level to defend the patenting of genes. The idea that we would be prevented from having considerable latitude in analyzing our own genes is something that strikes people as a bit absurd on the face of it."

SOURCE Clinical Cancer Genetics