> 3. Actually, if all human genes (and their proteins) were patented to prevent any use by any other parties, then that would be a good thing, because if it turns out that one of them is really useful to treat a disease, then a drug company would be more likely to pursue that as a drug candidate because they could license the patent and protect themselves from generics for a few years to pay off all the R&D costs.
Your hypothesis has been tested and empirically shown to be false. Genes that have ever been patented have had less subsequent innovation than genes that have never been patented: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w16213
The reason that this lawsuit is being brought at all is that your interpretation in your final paragraph differs from Myriad's interpretation, so I would not say that everything is 'fine' from either party's perspective.
Your hypothesis has been tested and empirically shown to be false. Genes that have ever been patented have had less subsequent innovation than genes that have never been patented: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w16213
The reason that this lawsuit is being brought at all is that your interpretation in your final paragraph differs from Myriad's interpretation, so I would not say that everything is 'fine' from either party's perspective.