A Steak in Genomics™

Hat tip to Dr. John Cole, USDA, and Jesse Hoff for bringing this to my attention on Twitter . I need to make an important point: I am not a patent lawyer. I do not have a deep understanding of patent law and nothing in this post should be considered legal advice or council. On November 8, 2016 Canada issued a patent to Ben Hayes and Michael Goddard for genomic prediction. Genomic prediction is estimating an animal's breeding value (i.e. genetic merit) using DNA variants. See the Canadian Intellectual Property Office website for more detailed information about the patent. Meuwissen, Hayes and Goddard first published their work on genomic prediction in 2001. Hayes and Goddard filed for a patent of the method on December 21, 2007 with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. About 23 days later, the Illumina BovineSNP50 Beadchip, a DNA test that can test 54,000 DNA variants quickly and cheaply for cattle, was released at the Plant and Animal Genome Conference. This 50K ...