Supreme Court Legitimizing Medical Patents?

[ElNono]

"A case before the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday addressed the legality of medical patents. From the article: 'The case focuses on a patent that covers the concept of adjusting the dosage of a drug, thiopurine, based on the concentration of a particular chemical (called a metabolite) in the patient's blood. The patent does not cover the drug itself—that patent expired years ago—nor does it cover any specific machine or procedure for measuring the metabolite level. Rather, it covers the idea that particular levels of the chemical "indicate a need" to raise or lower the drug dosage. The patent holder, Prometheus Labs, offers a thiopurine testing product. It sued the Mayo Clinic when the latter announced it would offer its own, competing thiopurine test. But Prometheus claims much more than its specific testing process. It claims a physician administering thiopurine to a patient can infringe its patent merely by being aware of the scientific correlation disclosed in the patent—even if the doctor doesn't act on the patent's recommendations.'"

[DarkReign]

Wow.

[boutons_deux]

Ain't predatory capitalism (investors, lawyers) in the name of health wonderful?

[FuzzyLumpkins]

We have now heard the defenses argument however in the face of the standards allowed by the courts out of East Texas its not surprising they do this.

If the SCOTUS allows standards for computer code to be applied to physical objects like this then we are ed.