McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP partner Dr. Kevin E. Noonan authored an article entitled, “An antidote to the politics of the human gene patenting debate” that appears in the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) blog on February 6, 2013. It is one of the misfortunes of the human gene patenting debate that there has been precious little discussion of patent law (at least from those opposing gene patents). Admittedly, patent law is an arcane area of the law, and patent law discussions can be a bit dry. It has been much more fruitful to focus on issues that are, in truth, related to healthcare policy, or insurance, or the uneven distribution of health care among the states, or to introduce political prejudices about purported corporate ownership of human genes, or threats to personal integrity and autonomy. However important those issues may be, their solution lies outside the realm of patent law, and will not be solved by a decision that human genes should be ineligible for patent. View the article