Citation in Brief for Amici Curiae

I notice that Who Owns You and this blog are cited and quoted in a recent court filing in the ACLU v. Myriad case. The references occur in the BRIEF FOR AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS’ OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO DISMISS AND IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT for the National Women's Health Network, Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, Center for Genetics and Society, Generations Ahead and the Pro-Choice Alliance for Responsible Research at p. 18. Quoting now the brief:

"The consequences of such attempts to assert exclusionary rights to our common heritage often involve harms to others. Attorney and philosopher David Koepsell asks us to “[i]magine a tax on air, or a levy on sunlight, or some corporation claiming ownership of the open seas and demanding royalties for their use. Imagine a world where ideas could be owned, and thinking ideas held by others was prohibited or subject to fees, taxes or royalties.” David Koepsell, Who Owns You?, Wiley-Blackwell at 133 (2009). He points out that the “human genome is a constantly evolving object that involves every member of the species” and that “[g]ranting exclusionary rights to discoverers of genes that are part of that genome interferes with our common rights as beneficiaries and possessors of parts of the human genome.” http://whoownsyou-drkoepsell.blogspot.com (Aug. 21, 2009 posting; last accessed Aug. 27, 2009)."

I am pleased to see this used in the brief, and I am quite honored.