SIVACRACY.NET: SupCo refuses to overrule case that says that scientific facts are patentable

The U.S. Supreme Court has changed its mind about reviewing the case Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings v. Metabolite Laboratories Inc.

This was a very troubling case. Metabolite owns a patent that includes a scientific claim of fact that if a person has elevated levels of homocysteine she or he probably has a vitamin deficiency. This patent is so broad that any other medical technique or treatment that relies on this basic fact would violate Metabolite's patent.

Traditionally, patents did not govern matters of fact or scientific discovery. They only protected useful and original methods of doing work. But those days are over. Now the patent system is so insane that it controls thoughts and facts.

We all thought the Supreme Court would step in and restore sanity to both science and the patent system. Alas, no.

From the Chronicle of Higher Ed:

Friday, June 23, 2006

Supreme Court Punts on Patent Case Said to Impinge on Academic Freedom

By ANDREW MYTELKA

Washington

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that it had made a mistake in agreeing to hear an appeal of a case that some academics have said represents a broad threat to academic freedom.

The ruling, which was unsigned, did not explain why the court thought it had erred, but speculation will naturally turn to the change in personnel on the court in the time since it agreed to consider the appeal.

The case, Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings v. Metabolite Laboratories Inc., et al., No. 04-607, concerns one company's patent-infringement claim against the other. No academics or universities are involved in the dispute, but it raises an intellectual-property question that many scholars had hoped the court would resolve. At issue in the case was whether an element of the patent was really eligible to be patented.

The patent, which covers a technique for testing for homocysteine, an amino acid, includes the observation that high levels of homocysteine indicate a vitamin deficiency. Critics of the patent said that such a correlation was simply a biological fact, a law of nature that was inherently unpatentable. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, however, upheld that part of the patent as valid.

In an essay published last winter in The Chronicle Review, Lori B. Andrews, a law professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology, wrote that such a ruling threatened "the freedom to think and publish" because other basic "scientific facts and methods of scientific and medical inquiry" would soon be patented as well, severely circumscribing what academics could do without seeking permission from and paying royalties to a host of new patent holders. The American Medical Association and other academic groups joined her in filing briefs with the Supreme Court that criticized the patent.

In a response to that essay, Jeffrey S. Boone, an intellectual-property expert, concluded that "the sky is not falling, the Patent Office is not the new thought police, and academic freedom is not being limited."

Ms. Andrews and her allies appear to have swayed only three members of the Supreme Court. Justice Stephen G. Breyer, joined by Justices John Paul Stevens and David H. Souter, wrote a 15-page dissent that said the court should have ruled on the case for a range of reasons, including those cited by Ms. Andrews.