A federal appeals court reaffirmed on Thursday the right of Myriad Genetics to patent two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer, after the Supreme Court told it to take another look at the hotly contested case. A panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld Myriad’s right to patent “isolated” genes known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, which account for most inherited forms of breast and ovarian cancer. But the court denied the biotechnology company’s effort to patent methods of “comparing” or “analyzing” DNA sequences.
