ACLU sues the US patent office

In a suit in SD NY, captioned Association for Molecular Pathology, et al. v. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, et al., attorneys from the ACLU and PubPat go after patents to Myriad which involve BRCA.

A story at biocompare notes:

The patents granted to Myriad give the company the exclusive right to perform diagnostic tests on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes and to prevent any researcher from even looking at the genes without first getting permission from Myriad. According to the lawsuit, such monopolistic control over these genes hampers clinical diagnosis and serves as a disincentive for research because Myriad not only has the right to enforce its patents against other entities but also has the rights to future mutations discovered on the BRCA2 gene. The gene patents are also illegal under patent law because genes are "products of nature."

See previous IPBiz post for what happened in Europe:

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/11/myriad-wins-partial-victory-at-epo-over.html