Patents for Human Genes, Diagnostic Tests Generate Policy Debate

Isolated human genes would be patentable, and the costs of medical diagnostic tests would jump under a recently introduced bill to revamp patent eligibility, panelists at an American Civil Liberties Union virtual briefing said Monday—a stance that former patent officials labeled “scaremongering.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) introduced the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (S. 4734) in August, to address the subjective underpinnings of Section 101 of the Patent Act—the threshold statute that says an inventor can patent “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.”

The bill would for ...