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The European BRCA patent oppositions and appeals: coloring inside the lines

Nature Biotechnology volume 31, pages 704–710 (2013)Cite this article

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The patents on BRCA1 and BRCA2 held by Myriad Genetics have been the subject of much attention in the United States recently, but the fire was lit in Europe more than a decade ago.

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Figure 1: Timeline of the application, grant, opposition and appeal events of the various BRCA1 and BRCA2 patents.
Figure 2: Limited coverage of BRCA patents in Europe (as of 1 July 2013).

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge many people for advice throughout the years, and specifically D. Halley, E. Girodon-Boulandet and E. Van Zimmeren for critical comments on the manuscript. This article is based on the examination documents publicly available on the register of the EPO (www.epoline.org or https://register.epo.org/espacenet/regviewer) and related literature.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Gert Matthijs and Isabelle Huys: G.M. and I.H. contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gert Matthijs is at the Center for Human Genetics of the University of Leuven, Belgium.,

    Gert Matthijs

  2. Isabelle Huys is in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Centre for Intellectual Property Rights (CIR) of the University of Leuven, Belgium.,

    Isabelle Huys

  3. Geertrui Van Overwalle is at the CIR of the University of Leuven, Belgium, and at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society of Tilburg University, The Netherlands.,

    Geertrui Van Overwalle

  4. Dominique Stoppa-Lyonnet is at the Université Paris Descartes and the Service de Génétique at the Institut Curie, Paris, France.,

    Dominique Stoppa-Lyonnet

Authors
  1. Gert Matthijs
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  2. Isabelle Huys
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  3. Geertrui Van Overwalle
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  4. Dominique Stoppa-Lyonnet
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Gert Matthijs or Isabelle Huys.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Matthijs, G., Huys, I., Van Overwalle, G. et al. The European BRCA patent oppositions and appeals: coloring inside the lines. Nat Biotechnol 31, 704–710 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.2644

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