Identity, Invention, and the Culture of Personalized Medicine Patenting

What are the normative implications of patenting in the area of personalized medicine? As patents on genes and medical diagnoses have increased over the past decade, this question lies at the intersection of intellectual property theory, identity politics, biomedical ethics and constitutional law. These patents are part of the personalized medicine industry, which develops medical treatments tailored to individuals based on race and other characteristics. This book provides an overview of developments in personalized medicine patenting and suggests policies to best regulate such patents.

1. Persons and patents; 2. Start-ups, up-starts, and markets for personalized medicine; 3. The case of race-specific patents; 4. Normative construction of identity; 5. Persons, patents, and policy; 6. A business, a litigant, a metaphor: the future of personalized medicine patents.

Shubha Ghosh is a Vilas Research Fellow, Professor of Law and Associate Director of the Initiatives for Studies in Transformational Entrepreneurship at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, School of Law. He is the author of more than fifty articles and book chapters and of two leading casebooks in intellectual property law. His research is in the area of intellectual property with a focus on social justice in the design of institutions that support innovation and development.