Pending Litigation
Some Thoughts on Myriad After the Supreme Court Argument
On April 15, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics. This was another significant step—probably the penultimate one—in the long-running Myriad drama. It began with a group of plaintiffs (including researchers, doctors, and breast cancer patients) joining an American Civil Liberties Union-organized lawsuit to invalidate Myriad’s patents on two breast cancer susceptibility genes (BRCA1 and 2) as well as patents on methods of interpreting genetic test results and testing anti-cancer drug efficacy. In a shocking decision, the federal district court in New York threw out all of Myriad’s patents. The Federal Circuit then reversed the district court’s rulings on the gene patents, with the three-judge panel holding unanimously that cDNA is patentable subject matter and holding 2-1 that isolated genomic DNA is patentable as well. The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling that Myriad’s methods of interpreting mutations are not patentable, but reversed it in reinstating Myriad’s claims to methods of testing drug efficacy.
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All Eyes on Maryland v. King: Recapping the Supreme Court Oral Argument
Seating was in short supply to hear oral arguments before the Supreme Court in what J. Alito referred to as “the most important criminal procedural case that this court has heard in decades,” Maryland v. King. Eager spectators –including this contributor for the Genomics Law Report – lined up along the marble steps of the Supreme Court building and waited amidst biting winter temperatures in excess of four hours before being allowed inside. [I thought to myself, “if I can brave the cold for football, I can brave the cold to see our nation’s highest court in action.”] The second of two cases scheduled for the morning of February 26, 2013, oral arguments for Maryland v. King were already underway when the fortunate final spectators were ushered inside. Katherine Winfree and Michael Dreeben argued for the Petitioners (the State of Maryland) and Kannon Shanmugam argued on behalf of the Respondent (Alonzo King).
The Genomics Law Report has covered the brewing constitutional controversy of DNA fingerprinting upon arrest previously, as U.S. v. Mitchell tentatively settled the matter in the 3rd Circuit, as the 9th Circuit continued to wrestle with Haskell v. Harris, and as various state courts, including Minnesota and Colorado [pdf], faced similar questions.
Background on Maryland v. King. Alonzo Jay King, Jr. was arrested in 2009 and charged with first- and second-degree assault. As part of his initial arrest, King submitted to DNA fingerprinting collected by law enforcement under the Maryland DNA Collection Act. More than half the states [pdf] have statutes similar to Maryland’s, and there is also a similar federal statute (the DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005 [pdf]). King admitted to his involvement and was ultimately convicted of second-degree assault, a misdemeanor and an offense not qualifying on its own for DNA collection upon arrest under Maryland’s law.
Supreme Court to Rule on Patentability of Human Genes
Robert Cook-Deegan contributed to this commentary. Dr. Cook-Deegan is a research professor in the Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy and the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.
The Supreme Court today granted a writ of certiorari (meaning they agreed to hear the appeal) in Assoc. for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., et al., the famous case centered on patents covering two human genes: BRCA1 and BRCA2.
Of note is that the Court limited its grant of the appeal to the first of the three questions posed by the petitioners/plaintiffs: “Are human genes patentable?”
Myriad Updates: Clinical Data as Trade Secrets and a Pending Certiorari Decision
Earlier this month, my colleagues John Conley, Robert Cook-Deegan, James Evans and I published a policy article in the European Journal of Human Genetics (EJHG) entitled “The next controversy in genetic testing: clinical data as trade secrets.”
The EJHG article is open access so you can read the entire article at the EJHG website, but here is the abstract:
ENCODE, CODIS, and the Urgent Need to Focus on what is Scientifically and Legally Relevant to the DNA Fingerprinting Debate
Sara Huston Katsanis, MS is an Associate in Research at the Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy at Duke University.
On September 5, 2012, a coordinated release of 30 articles in Nature, Cell, Science, Genome Research, Genome Biology and other journals published the long-awaited findings of The Encylopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) Consortium. The press coverage of ENCODE data is deafening at this point, and ENCODE’s relevance to GLR readers may not be immediately apparent.
Across the U.S., numerous groups are challenging the integration of CODIS profiles (sometimes called “DNA Fingerprints”) into the routine booking procedures upon arrest for certain crimes (depending on the state), placing genetic profiling among other standard procedures such as fingerprinting and mug shot photographs. The GLR has covered these legal challenges previously (including here, here, and here).
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Applying Mayo to Myriad: Latest Decision Brings No New News (Plus: Why the Final Myriad Decision Might Not Matter for Personalized Medicine)
The latest chapter in the Myriad gene patent litigation was written yesterday, with the Federal Circuit issuing its much anticipated opinion (pdf) after rehearing the case following the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision earlier this year in Prometheus v. Mayo.
Or perhaps we should say that the latest chapter was “rewritten” as, in a move that surprised approximately nobody, and as we predicted earlier this spring, the Federal Circuit reached precisely the same result in its opinion today as it did last July when it issued its first substantive ruling in the Myriad litigation. Below, we examine how the Federal Circuit applied Mayo to Myriad, what the next step in the Myriad litigation is likely to be (spoiler alert: it’s another appeal) and why we think the final opinion in this case, whenever it arrives and whatever it says, might not matter all that much.
Applying Mayo to Myriad. As mentioned, the only major change since the last time the Federal Circuit ruled in Myriad, and the reason for the re-hearing, was the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this spring in Mayo.
However, Mayo was about method patents and the boundary between a patent-eligible method and a law of nature. It was not about product patents or the product of nature doctrine. Since the Federal Circuit had already invalidated all but one of Myriad’s method patents even before the Supreme Court tightened the criteria for method patents in Mayo, it was hard to see much of substance changing the second time around.
Courts in Unsettled Territory turn to the Map Available: United States v. Mitchell
We recently covered the Ninth Circuit’s split decision in Haskell v. Harris,1 which found DNA Fingerprinting of arrestees pursuant to California’s Prop 69 to be constitutionally sound. We also reported the Minnesota Supreme Court findings in In re Welfare of M.L.M. and State v. Johnson, rejecting challenges of DNA Fingerprinting based on 4th Amendment and Equal Protection grounds.
An Update from Colorado. An ongoing prosecution, United States v. Fricosu,2 became the most recent constitutional challenge to DNA fingerprinting upon arrest. The defendant, Ramona Fricosu, had her DNA sampled as part of her arrest pursuant to the DNA Fingerprinting Act of 2005, 42 U.S.C. §14135(a). She filed a motion challenging the constitutionality of the practice, requesting that the court order her DNA sample and CODIS profile be destroyed. Fricosu challenged the constitutionality of the practice on Fourth Amendment grounds. On February 22, 2012, Colorado District Judge Blackburn denied the motion (pdf).
Myriad Finally Reaches the Supreme Court (But Only For a Moment)
Yesterday, the Supreme Court (as we predicted last week that it might) GVR’d the certiorari petitions (pdf) of both parties in the Myriad Genetics case.
Big news, right? Not really.
What this means is that the Court Granted cert in Myriad, but for the limited purpose of Vacating the Federal Circuit’s July 2011 decision and Remanding the case to that court for reconsideration in light of the Supreme Court’s decision last week in Prometheus.
Prometheus Patents Struck Down, 9-0: Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. Analysis
In a strong rebuke to the Federal Circuit, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court held (pdf), on March 20, 2012, that Prometheus Laboratories’ claims to methods of administering drugs to treat gastrointestinal autoimmune diseases do not meet the patentable subject matter standard of section 101 of the Patent Act. The representative claim quoted by the Court recites, “A method of optimizing therapeutic efficacy for treatment of an immune-mediated gastrointestinal disorder” comprising two steps: (a) administering one of a class of drugs (thiopurines) and (b) determining the level of a specified metabolite, “wherein” a level below a given threshold “indicates a need to increase the amount of said drug subsequently administered” [to improve efficacy], and a level above the threshold “indicates a need to decrease the amount of said drug subsequently administered” [to avoid toxicity].
History of the Case. Mayo originally bought and used Prometheus test kits that employed the patented method, but it then decided to sell and market its own test, which was similar, but not identical. Prometheus sued for patent infringement. The district court found that Mayo’s test would infringe the Prometheus patents, but it then held the patents invalid as essentially claiming unpatentable laws of nature–in this case, the relationship between the levels of the specified metabolite and the efficacy or toxicity of the relevant drugs.
Minnesota the Latest to Weigh in on DNA Fingerprinting of Arrestees
Jennifer K. Wagner, J.D., Ph.D., is a solo-practicing attorney in State College, PA and a research associate at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Integration of Genetic Healthcare Technologies.
There is an increasingly apparent absence of national consensus on whether the practice of collecting a DNA sample and creating a CODIS profile as part of the routine arrest booking procedures (i.e., “DNA fingerprinting”) conforms to the constitutional proscription of unreasonable searches and seizures articulated as the 4th Amendment. We mentioned this topic at the Genomics Law Report previously here, here, and here.
In July 2011, the 3rd Circuit upheld the federal DNA Fingerprinting Act of 20051 in United States v. Mitchell.2 Perhaps perceiving this ruling as a judicial green light, Pennsylvania’s General Assembly, as we recently noted, seems motivated to authorize the practice of DNA fingerprinting upon felony arrest. While the Pennsylvania Senate passed S.B. 775 and referred the matter to the House Judiciary Committee in December 2011, no apparent action has been taken on the measure since then.
