Doubts about CST and Gene Patents

I think I’m less confident than Kevin Lee seems to be that Catholic social thought and the words of Pope John Paul II speak to the AMP v. USPTO case, which was argued Monday in the Federal Circuit (summary of the issues here). I think one can agree with John Paul that the “biological cannot be separated from the spiritual, family and social dimensions” of the person without coming to any firm views about the correct understanding of the Patent Act’s limitations on patenting “products of nature,” which involves some thorny issues of statutory interpretation and striking the right policy balance between encouraging competition while also properly incentivizing biotech research. There is also the troubling fact that DOJ’s current position is a significant departure from the longstanding position of the USPTO and the National Institutes of Health on the patentability of isolated DNA. Finally (and nicely following on earlier posts about the Supreme Court’s standing decision on Monday in Winn), it appears doubtful that the plaintiffs in AMP v. USPTO meet the controversy or particularized harm requirements for standing because they have no legal interests adverse to the patent holder. While I can hardly disagree with Pope John Paul II that “man goes beyond the sum of his biological characteristics,” I’m reluctant to trample the Article III limitations on standing or the settled expectations of scientific researchers to make the point.