The following is an edited excerpt.

Myriad Genetics has, for decades, been seen as the symbol of genomic greed. Ever since the Utah company patented the two major breast cancer genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, in the Nineties, and a diagnostic test for them, it has defended those patents aggressively in a string of legal showdowns that have scared off companies trying to develop cheaper tests.

Not everyone, however, finds clarity or comfort in the judgment of the US Supreme Court on Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics.

Read the full story here: The firms putting a copyright on cancer