shouting loudly

Michael Crighton on “Correlation Patents”

This is new to me: in an op-ed titled “This Essay Breaks the Law,” Michael Crighton states that the Supreme Court will soon be reviewing a case involving some company’s claim on a patent on a form of medical treatment. The patent in question can apparently be violated just by thinking about the correlation between elevated homocysteine levels (an amino acid) and vitamin B-12 deficiency; Crighton offers another example to illustrate how mind-boggling this is.

For example, the human genome exists in every one of us, and is therefore our shared heritage and an undoubted fact of nature. Nevertheless 20 percent of the genome is now privately owned. The gene for diabetes is owned, and its owner has something to say about any research you do, and what it will cost you. The entire genome of the hepatitis C virus is owned by a biotech company. Royalty costs now influence the direction of research in basic diseases, and often even the testing for diseases. Such barriers to medical testing and research are not in the public interest. Do you want to be told by your doctor, “Oh, nobody studies your disease any more because the owner of the gene/enzyme/correlation has made it too expensive to do research?”

Just to be clear, this isn’t about patenting tests. We’re really talking about patenting little bits of the human body, which are apparently exempt from the patent office’s refusal to deal with “products of nature.”