Controversial U.S. bill would lift Supreme Court ban on patenting human genes
Okay, I understand the arguments against this bill and can sum them up easily; patents are meant for <i>inventions</i> whereas these are discoveries. Genes and their properties exist in nature and the discoverers stumbled on to them through some variant of effort and random chance.<p>Logically, if they exist by default and we are making observations about them, then how do we get to patent/own the very idea of them? An absurd parallel would be Charles Darwin patenting a giant tortoise - an entity that exists in nature - upon his discovery and requiring a license fee each time a natural history museum displayed one.<p>But that's one side of the story; what's the argument <i>for</i> the bill? Is there a logical reason why the patent system should be expanded to include entities you observe in nature?<p>I am sure the above can be formulated with more precision and panache, but as far as I can tell, I'm not sure what the equivalent set of ideas are for the people arguing for this bill. The best that I can come up with is an appeal to utility (i.e. it would incentivize X, Y or Z). However that's not a strong enough argument - what's the "steel man" that's missing from this conversation?