Court dismisses second appeal to overturn ruling on corporate human gene patenting
Court dismisses second appeal to overturn ruling on corporate human gene patenting
By court reporter Jamelle Wells
Updated 1 minute agoFri 5 Sep 2014, 12:22pm
Yvonne D’Arcy Photo: Yvonne D’Arcy has lost her second appeal to overturn a court ruling on human gene patening. (ABC TV)
Related Story: Breast cancer patents quashed as Supreme Court rules human DNA cannot be patented
Related Story: Cancer group loses gene patent challenge
Related Story: Gene patent stoush heads to US court
Map: Australia
An appeal against a court ruling that human genes can be patented by private companies has been dismissed.
A Federal Court appeal was lodged last year by a breast cancer survivor after two bio-tech companies were granted the patent to a hereditary gene associated with an increased risk of cancer.
A previous court ruling was that the patent applied because the genetic material needed to be extracted from the body to be tested.
Brisbane woman Yvonne D’Arcy, a cancer survivor, argued the genes exist in nature so are discovered rather than invented.
She said she launched the case even though she herself does not have the BRCA1 gene.
Her case was against US-based company Myriad Genetics and Melbourne-based company Genetic Technologies.
The full bench of the Federal Court in Sydney has today dismissed her second appeal in the case, stating that “expressions such as the work of nature or the laws of nature are unhelpful when dealing with claims of a kind in this case.”
“One may distinguish between discovery of a piece of abstract information without suggestion of a practical application to a useful end, on the one hand, and a useful result produced by doing something which has not been done by that procedure before, on the other,” the five judge panel said.
‘Genes owned by unknown corporation’
Her lawyer Rebecca Gilsenen from Maurice Blackburn said the judgment is disappointing.
more…