Richard Blaylock Advocates for Invitae in Congressional Hearing Over Patent Eligibility Bill

The controversial bill would expand the scope of inventions that may be patented to all useful processes, machines, manufactures or compositions of matter patent-eligible and overrule the Supreme Court, which has held in a series of 9-0 decisions, that abstract ideas, natural phenomena, laws of nature and non-inventive applications of them using conventional technology are not eligible for patenting under U.S. patent law.

Corporate and Intellectual Property partner Richard Blaylock, who represents genetic testing company Invitae Corporation, testified on behalf of Invitae stating that the bill “would stifle innovation and harm patient care in the fields of diagnostic genetic testing and precision medicine.”

Blaylock explained that genetic testing permits detection of variants or biomarkers that can indicate a greater risk for cancer or other diseases. New biomarkers, which are recognized as natural phenomena by the Supreme Court, are being identified every day and the bill would suddenly allow the privatization of that information by patenting it. A patent thicket would emerge blocking genetics testing companies and clinicians from accessing such foundational information.

“[The patent system] should permit protection of inventions…but not mere discoveries of information,” or, more simply, “one should be able to own the cure, but not the disease,” he said.

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