Legal status of gene patent right

At the beginning of April 2009, the US federal court rejected Amgen's genetic patent application. Amgen company purchased a gene sequence of nail protein from Immunex company, which is a key gene related to human immune response. Therefore, as soon as Amgen got the gene sequence, it submitted a patent application to the US Patent Office, hoping to monopolize the life technology research based on nail genes in the future.

The decision of the federal court made Amgen very happy. The federal court disputed whether to grant this patent to the company. The focus of controversy is whether the discoverer of nail gene is the original creator, that is, whether the scientists of Immunex company are the first discoverers of nail gene. The federal court finally ruled that Immunex scientist was not the first discoverer of nail gene, so it ruled that Amgen could not obtain the patent right of this gene.

The signal sent by this judgment is that the threshold for applying for genetic patents will be higher and higher in the future. Of course, the key to applying for a gene patent is whether the applicant is the first discoverer of the gene, and the identified gene sequence of protein will not be patented.