The ACLU rarely involves itself with patent cases, so it was surprising when the civil liberties group filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to invalidate a patent in the case of Mayo v. Prometheus. Mainstream press coverage portrayed the dispute between two medical testing labs as a mundane argument over "individualized medicine," but to the ACLU, what’s at stake is nothing less than the freedom of thought…Whether or not you consider Prometheus' patent as a form of thought-policing, a Supreme Court decision to uphold it—and thereby legalize medical diagnostic patents more generally—would be a disaster for patients.

Slate,by Timothy Lee, 12/2011

Tags: Legal / Leadership