L’ADN humain naturel ne peut pas être breveté
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/sante/article/2013/06/13/l-adn-humain-naturel-ne-peut-pas-etre-brevete_3429866_1651302.html
La décision était très attendue pour la recherche génétique. L’ADN humain est un produit de la nature et ne peut pas être breveté, a tranché, jeudi 13 juin, la Cour suprême des Etats-Unis, estimant que seul l’ADN complémentaire, c’est-à-dire synthétisé, pouvait l’être.
Killing Gene Patents Could Revitalize Biotech | Wired Business | Wired.com
▻http://www.wired.com/business/2013/06/wall-street-gene-patents
Still, some think the decision didn’t go far enough in freeing up genetic data. The court upheld that complementary DNA—a synthetic DNA commonly known as cDNA used for genetic engineering techniques—can be patented because it does not exist in nature, or in the words of the ruling, “the lab technician unquestionably creates something new.”
Still, cDNA has the same functionality as regular DNA, says Rochelle Dreyfus, a professor at the New York University School of Law who specializes in intellectual property law and science. “It’s like a computer program. It’s telling the body what to do,” Dreyfus says. “If what you care about is not giving people rights over fundamental principles then it seems to me that the cDNA is just as problematic as DNA.”
This outlook could still be good for innovation in the biotech industry, however. Instead of worrying about cDNA patents, scientists and companies might choose to develop novel methods to do genetic research that circumvents cDNAs altogether. In that case, patents incentivize innovation, but in a way, that contradicts the essential logic of patents themselves.
“There’s a whole world out there yet to be developed,” said Linda Kahl, a legal scholar in the department of bioengineering at Stanford. “It has started to take off—and it will continue.”