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Opinion on Gene Patent

    Camera crews set up by the Supreme Court plaza on a steamy morning with thunderstorms, and even a possible derecho, forecast. Also in the forecast was the possibility of a major decision in one of the remaining twenty-three cases argued earlier in the term.

    The Court did not dissapoint the court-watchers, delivering a far reaching opinion on the patenting of natural genes. In his opinion for the Court in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics Justice Thomas said, “Myriad did not create anything.” However the Court also found that a synthetic version of the gene created by Myriad was patentable.

    There now remain nineteen undecided cases.

 

 

California Raisins and Ex Post Facto

    No opinions today on any of the big Supreme Court cases everyone has been watching and waiting for, but we did get :
    Horne v. Department of Agriculture, in which California raisin growers won the right to challenge the constitutionality of regulatory fees.......

..... and Peugh v. United States, where the Court agreed with Marvin Peugh that the longer sentence he received under U.S. Sentencing Guidelines that were revised upward after he committed his crime were an ex post facto violation.

     The Court also announce a third opinion, a class arbitration case, but I didn't finish the sketch of Justice Kagan ....she sits so far away.