{"id":186520,"date":"2012-08-17T00:36:42","date_gmt":"2012-08-17T08:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/gnxp\/?p=17890"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T08:00:00","slug":"the-gif-of-genomics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gnxp.com\/WordPress\/2012\/08\/17\/the-gif-of-genomics\/","title":{"rendered":"The GIF of genomics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As you may know the <a href=\"http:\/\/news.sciencemag.org\/scienceinsider\/2012\/08\/myriad-genetics-wins-and-loses-i.html\">interminable Myriad genetics patents case<\/a> has been making waves in the courts, most recently with mixed results as to whether their patents on\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gene_patent#Myriad_Genetics_case\">several specific genetic diagnostics<\/a> are valid. This aspect needs to be highlighted:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One of the three deciding judges, William Bryson, dissents in part from the majority opinion, arguing that Myriad&#8217;s claims to the BRCA gene and gene fragments are not valid. He writes that he feared that if the majority opinion stands, it &#8220;will likely have broad consequences,<strong> such as preempting methods for whole-genome sequencing.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is legalistic hyperbole. If &#8220;gene patents&#8221; become so ridiculous that whole-genome sequencing becomes unfeasible then the system of intellectual property is going to come crashing down. And whole-genome (and exome) sequencing is not that far off. The Myriad case feels <strong>so 2002 to me.<\/strong> It reminds me of another instance where the sluggishness of the legal process was such that the dispute became a moot point because of the march of technological history: the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Graphics_Interchange_Format#PNG_and_other_alternatives\">GIF<\/a>. A particular company owned the rights to the GIF&#8217;s compression technique. But over the years the GIF became a marginal format, and the controversy just faded away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As you may know the interminable Myriad genetics patents case has been making waves in the courts, most recently with mixed results as to whether their patents on\u00a0several specific genetic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pawqfx-Mwo","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnxp.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnxp.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnxp.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnxp.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnxp.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnxp.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnxp.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnxp.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnxp.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}