I don't think it is irrelevant. If someone found a unique splicing from three different areas of a gene, a splicing that is not produced by the body, it's not "natural". The body doesn't produce that particular variant, even though it's composed completely of coding regions from a gene. The researches constructed that sequence from bits of an existing gene. They created that particular sequence. To go to the extreme end, one could say that any sequence is going to be an alternative splicing of individual bases. I think there has to be room for people to create particular molecules that are based on sequences found in nature -- the kicker is that the specific molecule in question isn't found in that organism. Not in that particular form as a single entity.

Actually, I'd say unless you have a government bent on controlling the news

That's like finding a hog not bent on rolling in mud.

You forgot the part where you have to let the brownshirt into your house to confirm that your TV is incapable of receiving broadcasts.

The supremacy clause prevents states from violating rights protected in the Constitution. In practice, they do it all the time anyway.

If the researchers do isolate a particular strand of cDNA that does not occur in that particular form, by which I mean you're not going to find that piece of cDNA existing as a standalone entity within a cell and that particular sequence as a stand-alone provides functional, therapeutic effects, I think that's a gray area.

There are encrypted GSM phones with end-to-end encryption when talking to a similar phone. They're overpriced and hard to buy, but available. The source code is available so you can see how it works. It's classic Diffie-Hellman 4096-bit key exchange to establish a session key, followed by 256-bit AES encryption for the data.

It's too bad OpenMoko tanked. That was a totally open source phone down to the hardware level. That plus Cryptophone-compatible code would have been trustworthy.

Which is why I said a form of copyright. I don't think this type of innovation falls cleanly under either patent or copyright law, but I think a case can be made for some time-limited protection for the work.

If you find it you can use the natural form.

Whatever you do, make sure it looks good on a resumé. You're now relatively inefficient to the company that employs you.

> Creating cDNA is not a creative act.

Umm your sentence is self-contradictory.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. Blindly creating cDNA is one thing. Identifying particular cDNA that can be used for therapeutic purposes is a whole other thing and requires a lot of research. I can understand protections for the first researcher/group to identify a particular sequence that can be used for gene therapies. It's fair to address exactly what those protections should be. We need protections from people who want to patent sequences willy-nilly. There needs to be a strong reason for why the particular sequence in question has been identified for protection. Perhaps a form of copyright may be more appropriate there than patent.

It was actually good news for Myriad, not just non-terrible news. While they did lose some parts of their patent, the core test is still protected.

In addition the way the decision was stated settles the entire field of biotech patents in such a way as to give certainty that there will be lots of opportunity for patentable inventions in the field, AND that R&D activities on isolated human DNA will be able to continue without threat of patent suits.

It isn't just Myriad stock that is up today. The stock market index for the WHOLE BIOTECH INDUSTRY is up substantially.

This is really a great decision that benefits everyone, in the following ways.

1. Isolated DNA is not patentable. This allows R&D on DNA to proceed unencumbered.

2. Commercial development of technologies using synthetic DNA derivatives for useful products is encouraged by allowing patent coverage.

I'm a contractor with pre-existing conditions, and I got health insurance without any problem. I think health insurance generally runs from $3000-$12000/year depending on what you need and how big your family is. My current New York subsidized plan is about $4500/yr.