Robert C. Pozen writes in today’s New York Times of his proposals for refitting our patent system, with a particular eye towards the painful inability of patent examiners to judge applications in fields outside their expertise.   Pozen’s proposal is that other researchers or experts in the appropriate field be allowed to officially comment on applications, after they are made public.  This modest proposal is in line with the general expectation of scientists that their work will be scrutinized harshly but fairly and–most importantly–by their peers.

Update 2/10: There has been much more commentary as the Myriad case has progressed.  For starters, a Bob Carlson wrote this news piece, summarizing the court case and discussing the implications.  A case study from 2008 chronicles the longer-term legal and business context.  For one critique of the patents, based on their fundamental biological nature, see David Koepsell’s post on the subject.

A recent controversy involving a biomedical patent has gotten extensive coverage in the media.  The New York Times reported that a cancer patient in Austin, Texas, assisted by the ACLU, is suing Myriad Genetics and the US Patent and Trademark Office for granting a monopoly on testing for an allele of BRCA-2, highly correlated with some types of cancers.

The patent on genotyping BRCA-2 is a classic intellectual property case because the discovery of the BRCA-2-cancer correlation was a biomedical breakthrough, but the diagnostic technology Myriad markets for genotyping BRCA-2 is cheap, even mundane.   Myriad agrues it needs the patent to protect itself from free-riding companies who wish to offer the diagnostic technology, but didn’t have to pay for its development.

• ACLU page on the case.
• Myriad BRACAnalysis.