JUSTICE KAGAN: "And the PTO seems very patent happy"

I love that quote from Justice Kagan because it pinpoints the root of the issue. She said it when Myriad's attorney tried to justify the practice of patenting isolated genes by referring to the Patent and Trademark Office's past practice of doing so. She is right, and that office, run as it is by patent attorneys, much like the CAFC is dominated by them, is a poor guide for what ought to be the case. They are "patent happy." (see, e.g., the Peanut Butter Sandwich patent).

One should never try to predict what the Supreme Court will do in any given situation. Nonetheless, a brief analysis of the transcript of the oral argument in the Myriad case is revealing. The Justices seem inclined to hold in a way that readers of this blog will be familiar with: isolation of a gene is not enough, only changing the gene suffices to make it patentable. The questioning from the Court right from the start revealed their discomfort with the current "isolation" regime, which is unsurprising in light of their recent decision in Prometheus.

Mr. Hansen did an excellent job in his argument, under some difficult questioning, steering the discussion back to the question of whether a product of nature, merely isolated, should be eligible under Section 101. He cited all the best examples, arguments, and precedent. He also conceded as he should that recombinant DNA is eligible, and that the patents at issue in the Myriad case are not recombinant. He also left the door open for the Justices to do as they seem inclined to do, and follow the lead of the Solicitor General, ruling that the isolated genes alone are ineligible subject matter but that cDNA is. This is also the position I have maintained all along in my book and since. The attorney for Myriad had a tougher time of it, and the questioning of the Justices seemed to have him in a corner a couple times. Instead of recapping the arguments, I urge you read them yourself here. Also, I am providing links to some excellent in-depth and plain English analyses here, at Patently-O and at ScotusBlog. What I wish to do here is highlight sections from my book that made the same argument that seems likely to win the day, a conservative position I have maintained all along, arguing that mere isolation is insufficient to warrant patent, that some degree of intention (and design) is necessary to make something inventive, and that while engineered genes ought to be patent eligible, isolated genes alone ought not to be. Here are some relevant passages:

"Each instance of the un-engineered human genome is a naturally occurring object. Its existence as an abstracted ideal which is instantiated in you, me, and every other human, in its present form has no element of the type of expression described above. There is no mixing of labor with any present human genome’s form, nor is there any human intention involved." (Who Owns You? p. 111-12)

"All copyrightable and patentable objects are intentionally produced man-made objects and they are not merely ideas. Your DNA, or mine, or any other non-engineered being, is not an expression according to this description of intellectual property, and neither is any naturally-occurring subset of a genome (such as a gene or a SNP)." (Ibid, p. 112)

"Chemical formulas, for example, or natural laws, cannot be copyrighted or patented. The seminal Supreme Court case Diamond v. Diehr, specifically excluded from patentability “laws of nature, natural phenomenon and abstract ideas.” (Ibid, p. 113)

"Many gene patents are perfectly valid both legally and ethically. All valid patents use products of nature in some form, but they do not extend to protect the naturally-occurring parts of the invention. Most patents on new chemicals involve not just a patent on the new compound, but also a patent on the process of synthesizing the compound.These sorts of patents provide guidance for how gene patents can legally issue and still also promote innovation. New genes could of course be patented if they are man-made. New combinations of genes can also be patented if they are the products of human intention." (Ibid, p. 114)

"Many gene patents issue now in which the current use of the gene is in merely finding the same gene. This is quite absurd. It is like patenting the element iron, and then claiming that the use of iron is in finding iron, or patenting the Rock of Gibraltar and then claiming that the utility of the patent is in locating the Rock of Gibraltar." (Ibid., p. 115)

I quote these sections because they show that the arguments I made anticipated the same ones made in the Myriad case which began a couple months after my book was published. These same arguments have been to a large degree echoed by the questioning of the Justices. Together with Myths About Who Owns You the past year at least has demonstrated just how conservative my arguments have been and how they echo the thinking of at least some Supreme Court Justices as well as precedent, and that perhaps initial claims about how wildly inaccurate, off-base, or whacky my arguments were, were themselves wildly inaccurate, whacky and off-base, or perhaps merely ideologically-motivated.

Now of course, the Court may still rule that all gene patents are just fine, but at least I take comfort in having my arguments made in public court, in language and with examples similar to that I used in 2006 when I first confronted these issues from a philosophical perspective. I'm comforted that now my arguments seem firmly in the mainstream and persuasive to many if not all.

ACLU petitions for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court.

As predicted, the plaintiffs have petitioned the Supreme Court to review the CAFC decision reported here . The grounds for the petition include the failure of the CAFC to properly apply the decision in Mayo to the facts of the Myriad case. Given the split in the CAFC, and the Supreme Court's own admonition that the CAFC ought to have reconsidered their decision in light of Mayo, it would be highly surprising if they don't decide to take this up next term. Expect more posturing and puffery from those who promote patenting products of nature as the Supreme Court considers the petition and opposing submissions. The fact is, patent attorneys who have made profits by helping corporations to monopolize what cannot justly be monopolized are terrified that the Supreme Court might do the right thing and finally end this practice. I think their fears are justified. A careful reading of Mayo and recent decisions by the Supreme Court on patent matters seems to show a trend against those who contend that one can patent anything simply by drawing artful claims.

In Myriad and More, Metaphysics Matters

This past week, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in the AMP v. Myriad "breast cancer genes" case. You'll recall that following its decision in Prometheus v. Mayo, in which, to the shock and horror of patent attorneys everywhere, certain diagnostic methods were considered ineligible for patent under Section 101 as being too close to natural laws or phenomena, the Supreme Court then vacated and remanded the Myriad appeal back to the CAFC for reconsideration in light of Prometheus. The fact that the decision of the CAFC was vacated and remanded, and that the court was asked to reconsider it in light of Prometheus, ought to be a clue that SCOTUS believes that there is some relevance between the two cases, and in fact there is. Both cases have to do with the distinction between the "natural" and the "artificial" or "man-made," as the Chakrabarthy case we have discussed here, and in my book, makes such a distinction for patent eligibility. Namely, "laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas" are all explicitly not eligible for patents according to the Supreme Court, even though patent lawyers like to remind us that the Patent Act makes "discoveries" patentable. Sure they are, as long as they are not discoveries of "natural phenomena, laws of nature, or abstract ideas."

This is where lawyers are no longer the most competent experts, though many assume that they are. The distinction between "laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas" and everything else is a metaphysical question. Metaphysics and ontology are primarily the expertise of philosophers, not lawyers. So while patent attorneys like to pretend that they are the sole, or at least best arbiters of what ought to be considered patentable, I beg to differ. This is where philosophers are best suited to offer their expertise, because drawing distinctions, applying logic and metaphysics to the world and its objects is in fact what we are trained to do. Lawyers draw distinctions among legal objects, but not sui generis. Rather, they apply precedent and statutes to determine whether objects, acts, or omissions fall into pre-existing legal categories. Their tools are not metaphysical, and when new objects emerge, close analogies, or new statutes are typically necessary to deal with them. But as I have long argued, sometimes the law is ill-suited to solve new problems, or its categories are mistaken from the start on a metaphysical level.

I have never claimed to be an expert in patent law, but as a metaphysician and ontologist, I am a competent critic of its application to the world and its objects. In the case of gene patents, which often include claims over things that are metaphysically best described as "natural" despite their "isolation," courts ought to pay some heed to the underlying categories involved, and what philosophers have to say about them. Philosophers can disagree, of course, and arguments might be made about the boundary between what is natural and what is not, and I look forward to hearing those arguments and engaging with them. But I claim still, as I have all along, that mere isolation of some molecule does not create something "man-made," and I have provided countless examples, including my favorite, isolated O2. Nothing about its structure, even when isolated, is the product of man's design or intention, just as in Prometheus, nothing about the laws governing the interaction of a drug with a person's metabolism is the product of man's design or intention, even if the drug itself was entirely the product of both. The analogies between these two cases are clear, and when one understands the significance of the metaphysics behind Prometheus, it is clear that if the CAFC were to act responsibly and honestly, they would now have to find Myriad's BRAC1 and 2 patents ineligible. But probably we will have to wait for the Supreme Court to do this, just as they did with Prometheus. Or maybe not; hope springs eternal.

60 Minutes

60 Minutes did a great job with their segment, "Patented". It really is worth watching. Kudos to all involved, including Kevin Noonan, with whom I have sparred on the subject, who did a good job standing up for his side. I hope he'll take part in the documentary we are making as well. It is worth noting that the "lies" Noonan accused me of were the same statements made by Morley Safer on the 60 Minutes segment, though he seems a bit more politic in his references to the TV show than to my book (which he hadn't read, by his own admission, at the time).

This summer, Taylor and I should be able to edit something together in time, hopefully, for a couple festivals, perhaps the Rotterdam Film Festival here in Europe would be a good start. Overall, the timing on this subject really has been amazing. Little did I know when writing my book that the ACLU would bring this suit, nor especially that the time-table on the suit would coincide so well with the launch of the book. I'm been privileged to meet so many activists and academics involved in this debate at this critical time, and really am in awe of their commitment. Glad to see such momentum and media attention finally for this critical issue.