The judge got it right in my opinion when he ruled against gene patenting. He pointed out in his ruling that the scientists have made discoveries about an already existing product of nature, and they have not invented anything new.

This topic has escaped my notice for a while but according to the article below, scarily, already twenty percent of human genes have been patented.

If it means what I think it does, it means big business owns twenty per cent of our bodies. How can this be ethical?
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In the article below it says this recent ruling against gene patenting might call into question the previously permitted patents.

Any thoughts on this topic?

http://wellness.blogs.time.com/2010/03/ ... topstories

Agreed, although I haven't had a chance to read the full decision. it makes sense to me. My limited understanding of patents leads me to believe that there has to be some creation of an object or a process to qualify. The defense put forward that the difficulty in isolating the gene makes it eligible for patent seems strange. It would make sense if they wanted to patent the process by which they were able to isolate the gene or if they had modified it in some way but to patent something that has existed naturally for ages seems ridiculous.