Informant38

New Scientist ......colleagues looked at the case of two patented mutations associated with hereditary haemochromatosis, a disease where a person absorbs too much iron from food. In the US, about one person in 200 develops the disease, which can be fatal, and about one in 10 is a carrier. It is easily treatable.
The discovery of the gene mutations was reported in 1996 and many US labs began testing for the condition. A patent was awarded two years later and SmithKline Beecham Clinical Laboratories, which by then owned the patent, soon began enforcing it. It wrote to labs offering to grant sublicences for fees ranging from $25,000 to $250,000, plus royalties of $20 per test.
In 1999, Merz's group approached 128 laboratories that were capable of offering the test and asked what effect the patent enforcement had had. The researchers found that 26 per cent of the labs surveyed had decided not to provide the test, and four per cent said they had stopped offering it.

ignorant greedheads taking shelter under the flimsy canopy of contract law. soon to shred and be made useless