Battleangel

Thankfully, this nefarious practise has so far been limited to a few countries, like the US. But like all bad things, laws tend to migrate. Remember where we first got stricter patent and copyright laws from?

Medical Informatics Insider - A new study in this week’s Science reveals that a full 20 percent of the human genome has been patented in the United States. Of that 20 percent of patented genes — about 4,000 in total — around 63 percent are assigned to private firms while 28 percent are held by universities. Researchers patent genes as valuable research tools, for use in diagnostic tests, or to discover and produce new drugs. In the U.S., an isolated DNA sequence is treated by the patent system like other natural chemical products, such that a sequence of DNA can be patented in exactly the same way as a new medicine purified from a plant source could be patented.