The statutory language, on the books for more than six decades, seems simple: If someone "invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof," she may obtain a patent for it, subject to certain other requirements. 35 U.S.C. §101. Even the Supreme Court's three exceptions — laws of nature, natural phenomena and abstract ideas — seem straightforward. As it turns out, however, it can be hard to apply these simple concepts to modern technology. And so for the third time in four years, the Supreme Court has had to weigh in on this most fundamental of questions: what can be patented?

In the just-issued opinion in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, the question arose in the context of modern molecular biology. Myriad had discovered two human genes that, when mutated in precise locations, substantially increased the risks of breast and ovarian cancer. Myriad obtained three kinds of patent claims at issue in the Supreme Court: (1) the precise sequences of those genes, isolated from the rest of the human genome; (2) subsets of those sequences; and (3) certain sequences of complementary DNA (cDNA), which is an artificially synthesized form of DNA used to produce gene clones. Could those advances be patented?

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