Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/12-398_1b7d.pdf
Page Number: 16.0

Cite as:  569 U. S. ____ (2013) 

13 

Opinion of the Court 

levels.  But  farmers  could  not  use  the  same  inoculant  for 
all  crops,  both  because  plants  use  different  bacteria  and
because  certain  bacteria  inhibit  each  other.  Id.,  at  129– 
130.  Upon  learning  that  several  nitrogen-fixing  bacteria
did  not  inhibit  each  other,  however,  the  patent  applicant 
combined  them  into  a  single  inoculant  and  obtained  a 
patent.  Id., at 130.  The Court held that the composition
was  not  patent  eligible  because  the  patent  holder  did  not 
alter  the  bacteria  in  any  way.  Id.,  at  132  (“There  is  no 
way in which we could call [the bacteria mixture a product 
of  invention]  unless  we  borrowed  invention  from  the  dis-
covery  of  the  natural  principle  itself ”).    His  patent  claim
thus  fell  squarely  within  the  law  of  nature  exception.    So 
do Myriad’s.  Myriad found the location of the BRCA1 and
BRCA2 genes, but that discovery, by itself, does not render 
the BRCA genes “new . . . composition[s] of matter,” §101, 
that are patent eligible.

Indeed,  Myriad’s  patent  descriptions  highlight  the 
problem with its claims.  For example, a section of the ’282
patent’s  Detailed  Description  of  the  Invention  indicates 
that  Myriad  found  the  location  of  a  gene  associated  with
increased risk of breast cancer and identified mutations of 
that gene that increase the risk.  See  App. 748–749.4  In 

—————— 

4 The full relevant text of the Detailed Description of the Patent is as

follows: 

“It  is  a  discovery  of  the  present  invention  that  the  BRCA1  locus 
which predisposes individuals to breast cancer and ovarian cancer, is a
gene  encoding  a  BRCA1  protein,  which  has  been  found  to  have  no 
significant homology with known protein or DNA sequences. . . . It is a 
discovery  of  the  present  invention  that  mutations  in  the  BRCA1  locus
in  the  germline  are  indicative  of  a  predisposition  to  breast  cancer  and
ovarian cancer.  Finally, it is a discovery of the present invention that
somatic mutations in the BRCA1 locus are also associated with breast 
cancer, ovarian cancer and other cancers, which represents an indicator 
of  these  cancers  or  of  the  prognosis  of  these  cancers.    The  mutational 
events  of  the  BRCA1  locus  can  involve  deletions,  insertions  and  point
mutations.”  App. 749.