The US courts are deciding whether to prevent companies that identify new human DNA sequences from patenting them - and, therefore, obtain exclusive ownership of one minute slice of nature. Businesses and the legal profession were astounded this year when a judge ruled that genticists had to do more than be the first to find a new gene to own it. That has been the position for years.
Campaigners have complained that companies often hoard the results of their genetic research and stop research into new, life-saving drugs. Those patenting the genes argue it's a fair return on their own investment.
You can read the argument in an article I wrote this year, here.
If you're keen as mustard, I'd also recommend J. Craig Venter's autobiography, A Life Decoded. It's a rivetting account of the race to code the human genome.
