Supreme Court: Myriad Genetics’ monopoly on genetic cancer tests may be weakened

Lawyers who attended last week’s Supreme Court arguments over the patentability of human genetic material say the justices appeared skeptical about the decades-old practice of biotechnology companies patenting isolated human DNA sequences. But the justices seemed open to the possibility of allowing patents on synthetically produced genetic material, according to the legal analysts.

For the case, Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, the high court is examining whether genes removed from a cell in a laboratory are human-made inventions eligible for patent protection or products of nature that cannot be patented.