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Techdirt has been covering the important Myriad Genetics case for a while. Although the CAFCdecided that isolated genes could be patented, the Supreme Court has asked the appeals court to review the case in light of the former’s rejection of medical diagnostic patents.

The importance of this case is highlighted by the amicus curiae brief filed by James Watson, co-discoverer with Francis Crick of the structure of DNA, for which they received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 (along with Maurice Wilkins for related work.) Watson makes his views plain from the start:

what the Court misses, I fear, is the fundamentally unique nature of the human gene. Simply put, no other molecule can store the information necessary to create and propagate life the way DNA does. It is a chemical entity, but DNA’s importance flows from its ability to encode and transmit the instructions for creating humans. Life’s instructions ought not be controlled by legal monopolies created at the whim of Congress or the courts.

Watson recalls discussions on the topic during the $3 billion Human Genome Project to sequence human DNA as completely as possible:

Even at the early stages of the project, we were concerned about the issue of patenting human genes. Most, although not all, eminent scientists recognized that human genes should not be monopolized by patents. I believed at the time — and continue to believe — that the issue of patenting human genes went to the very crux of whether the information encoded by human DNA should be freely available to the scientific community. Some twenty years ago, I explained that patenting human genes was lunacy, and I was not a lone voice.

He also points out some concrete problems with gene patents in terms of their impact on assays (tests) that involve multiple genes:

If each of the human genes used in a new multi-gene assay are subject to patents, I fear that useful tests requiring multiple human genes will be unnecessarily delayed, become prohibitively expensive, or, worse yet, never be made available to patients at all. For a new assay using hundreds of human genes, the sea of patents and patent applications would create hundreds, if not thousands, of individual obstacles to developing and commercializing the assay. The best way, in my view, to resolve this problem is to eliminate the unnecessary patenting of human genes.

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I’m not really sorry, but I am a man of my word, so I apologize for not factoring in the John Roberts situation. Truthfully, I never in a million years would thought the chief justice would go beyond the scope of the commerce clause to date and into taxation. I may be an idiot for not considering that.

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Pope Benedict XVI fired a 52-year-old Slovak bishop for apparently mismanaging his diocese in a rare show of papal power over bishops that could have implications for U.S. sex abuse cases.

Usually when bishops run into trouble – either for alleged moral lapses or management problems – they are persuaded by the Vatican to resign. But Benedict has become increasingly willing to forcibly remove bishops who refuse to step down, sacking three others in the past year alone.

His willingness to do so raises questions about whether he would take the same measures against bishops who covered up for sexually abusive priests. So far he has not.

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In the face of U.S. lawsuits seeking to hold the pope ultimately responsible for abusive priests, the Holy See has argued that bishops are largely masters of their dioceses and that the pope doesn’t really control them. The Vatican has thus sought to limit its own liability, arguing that the pope doesn’t exercise sufficient control over the bishops to be held responsible for their bungled response to priests who rape children.

The ability of the pope to actively fire bishops, and not just passively accept their resignations, would seem to undercut the Vatican’s argument of a hands-off pope.

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When Nobel Prize winners get into mud-wrestling, everyone gets dirty and the pig enjoys it.

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Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond has resigned from the UK-based financial services giant amid an interest rate-fixing scandal that some believe could be a watershed moment for Britain’s banking system.

In a statement released by the company on Tuesday, Diamond said he chose to leave because “external pressure” on Barclays had “reached a level that risks damaging the franchise”.

Oh yes, the reputation they have as tax shy, totalitarian regime-supporting thieves and free-loaders of the first water will be irreparably damaged if he stays.

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