As the industry awaits the Supreme Court’s decision regarding the patentability of genes, experts are reviewing the mid-April oral arguments for clues as to which way the court is leaning. Court watchers speculate based on oral arguments in the Association for Molecular Pathology, et al. v. Myriad case that the Supreme Court may try to find a middle ground in which it denies the patentability of isolated genomic DNA but accepts that synthesized cDNA is a human construct, and thereby patentable. This halfway position, which was argued by the U.S. solicitor general in court (and seemingly well received by some of the justices) and in an amicus brief, marks a clear departure from the position previously taken by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Aside from the product-of-nature argument, one theme that penetrated questioning was a seeming unease about the economic and scientific consequences of the court’s decision, with concern for maintaining adequate incentives to propel innovation. This concern, while echoed by many in the life sciences industry, may be overstated, experts say, as there are not many successful companies built around existing single-gene patents. “Beyond personalized medicine’s potential interest in the Myriad outcome . . . the significance of […]