The Gene Hunt: Should Finders Be Keepers?

Defendants in a high-profile lawsuit that could have significant implications for thousands of patents on human genes have now asked a federal judge to dismiss the case, calling it a "thinly veiled attempt to challenge the validity of patents."

Two months ago, more than 150,000 researchers, doctors, activists and cancer patients filed a federal lawsuit in New York City against Myriad Genetics, Inc., the University of Utah Research Foundation and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Under the organization of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), they are challenging the legality and constitutionality of gene patents, with a focus on two of the most controversial: BRCA1 and BRCA2. Both genes are associated with breast and ovarian cancers, and both are held by Myriad. The information encoded in our DNA should belong to everyone, the plaintiffs argue, and the current standards for obtaining a patent are too low.

"There's a sense that the privatization of certain things has gone too far," says Debra Greenfield, an attorney and postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Society and Genetics at the University of...