Last year, Judge Sweet of the Southern District Court of New York shocked the legal and scientific communities by ruling that genes cannot be patented , as they constitute products of nature, and the comparison of gene sequences cannot be patented as they are abstract mental processes. Yesterday, the Federal Circuit overruled that decision with regard to genes . Essentially, it held that breaking the covalent bonds that hold the gene to the DNA strand results in a new chemical compound, just as burning sugar breaks it into carbon dioxide and water. The dissent argued that the genes already existed within the DNA strand, so their isolation is akin to mining a mineral from ore--the process may be patentable, but the mineral itself is not patentable as it is a natural product. The implications of the ruling are significant, especially as medical science progresses. The lawsuit concerns the BRCA1/2 genes associated with breast cancer, and a diagnostic test for these genes. After the pa