The patent Myriad Genetics filed in 1994, laying claim to the DNA sequence of the gene BRCA1, wasn't remarkable. It was one in a long line of some 40,000 patents on DNA molecules awarded in the past three decades, covering more than 20 percent of human genes. But that patent took on a new importance last summer, when the Supreme Court ruled that it and untold numbers of other DNA patents are invalid because naturally occurring DNA sequences cannot be patented.
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