This post on the Patent Doc blog brings the news that legislators in Australia are seeking to amend the patent statutes to explicitly prohibit gene patents. Since the Patent Docs are lawyers for pharma, they of course highlight the fact that a committee declined to embrace the bill. But they also were objective enough to link to this article from the Australian which highlights the sponsor’s intent to bring the issues forward regardless of the committee vote. According to the article in the Australian, gene patents are opposed by an array of interest groups, including advocacy groups for cancer patients and survivors.
Here in the states, the issue is moving towards the US Supreme Court as the Myriad case heads into the certiorari process. As readers may recall, the Obama Administration has wisely opposed gene patents, as described in this prior post. The district court proceedings were covered here. Complete coverage of the Myriad case is found at a great blog known as the Genomics Law Report – look at the upper right hand corner of the home page.
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