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Comment by aroch | Hacker News Reader

I'm not entirely convinced this ruling is a win...making cDNA patentable is, from my view in academic research, not a good thing. I also don't understand why the Court is under the impression that cDNA is something magical that is synthesized originally by some complex thing (OK, it's complex but not groundbreaking and has been used for a long time now).

cDNA is synthesized by reverse transcription of mRNA, which already contains the exons yet for some reason the court finds that "exon only" DNA is patentable. There are millions of cDNA fragments with a good proportion of known relevance. There's nothing inherently "unnatural" about creating cDNA using reverse transcription; it's how retroviruses like HIV work!

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Interesting comment and explanation, I was wondering why shares were rising in Myriad and the industry:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/myriad-genetics-share...

The high court ruled that genes naturally found in the body cannot be patented, but that synthetically created genetic material, called cDNA, can be patented. That leaves an opening for Myriad to continue making money, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the court’s majority decision.

The Supreme Court's move triggered a rally in genetic companies, while none as powerful as Myriad's gains. Industry giant Amgen rose 75 cents, or 0.8%, to $97.12. Smaller genetic companies such as Vermillion, Enzo Biochem and Qiagen rose 1%, 0.9% and 0.7% respectively.

I suppose I could be happy about it since I'm a share holder in Amgen and Qiagen.

Well, the patent was not on the process of creating cDNA, it was on the product -- they patented the cDNA itself, not the process for creating it. It is a composition of matter patent. Therefore, the question to ask is whether the cDNA itself exists in nature, not whether the process for making it does.

But there's no reason the product cDNA should be patentable. It's that a cDNA is, quite literally, just a different storage medium from mRNA. It'd be like saying you can't patent X because it's in .doc format but if you make it a PDF we'd be happy to let you patent it.

Not arguing but, fyi: the patent was not on the process of creating cDNA, it was on the product -- they patented the cDNA itself, not the process for creating it. It is a composition of matter patent.

But the information in the cDNA already exists in the mRNA. The justices seemed to argue that removing the introns was the step that makes cDNA patentable, but the introns are already removed from an mRNA molecule that is about to be translated into a protein.

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