Australia's Federal Court has allowed companies to patent genes. This is contrary to what recently happened in the US Supreme Court. Why? I say, why? What were they thinking?
The only piece of logic I can find here is this:
"Director of Advocacy at Cancer Council Australia, Paul Grogan, said
that, if the ruling was an interpretation of the law, then the law
needed to change.
"In 2008, Australian women were only protected from an
attempted commercial monopoly over the BRCA1 and BRCA2 tests because the
company that threatened to take those tests away from public
laboratories withdrew its patent claims voluntarily," he said.
"There was nothing in the law to protect healthcare consumers ... and there still isn't.
He said Australia might now end up finding US companies
enforcing patents here that they could not enforce in their home country
after a Supreme Court ruling there that overturned the gene patents."
It is also expected to bring companies to Australia where they can patent human genes.
I agree it may be time to change the laws.
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