The local biotechnology industry is on tenterhooks, waiting to see if a court ruling that invalidates patents on genes will be overturned. The federal court case, decided March 29, received an inordinate amount of attention from both the media and the legal community, prompting nine amicus briefs on the side of the defendant and several more on the side of the plaintiffs.
Attorneys who filed amicus briefs say that upholding the decision would have a wide-ranging negative impact on biotechnology, diagnostics and vaccines companies in Massachusetts.
“There is a misconception that this is about patenting genes. These are patents for diagnostics, and in the past those have been validated,” said Erik Belt, a patent attorney at McCarter & English LLP who was part of a team that drafted one of the amicus briefs in support of the biotechnology industry on behalf of the Boston Patent Law Association.
For full article: “Biotech industry focuses on how gene patent case turns out”