LA Times on Myriad: patenting leaves falling off trees?

Within the post by the LA Times on the Myriad case:

The legal question before the judges boils down to whether a gene, once it is "isolated" from a person's entire genetic code, is a "product of nature," and therefore ineligible for patent. Does merely removing a bit of DNA from the rest of the genetic material around it make that DNA a new invention? Or, as attorney Courtenay Brinckerhoff, a partner with the law firm Foley and Lardner, posed the question in a statement: "Can Myriad explain the difference between patenting isolated DNA and patenting a leaf that has fallen off of a tree?"