In a unanimous opinion issued on June 13, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court distinguished between isolated naturally-occurring DNA, which is non-patentable, and a synthetic version of DNA, complementary cDNA, which is patentable. Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics.
In this case, Myriad owned several key patents that gave it the exclusive right to isolate the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes on human chromosomes for genetic testing. Through isolating these genes, Myriad was also able to change the genetic sequence, resulting in cDNA, a non-naturally occurring DNA sequence.