Blog exclusive:

We've been following the Myriad case very diligently, not only in its presentation to the U.S. Supreme Court, but going back to when it was still before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. We've covered it not only in our own publication—Bloomberg BNA's Patent, Trademark & Copyright Journal—and in this very blog and the "Do You Copy?" Podcast. But this past weekend, WNYC's On the Media drew my attention with an interview with Robert L. Nussbaum, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Nussbaum's problem with Myriad is that in 2006 or so, Myriad stopped sharing its own data that forms the basis of diagnosis related to the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. So about a year ago, Nussbaum decided to compile his own database and make it available to the public. He has been contacting as many genetic clinics as possible and asking them to contribute their data to the joint database, so even if Myriad's own data isn't available for everyone to look at, there will be an alternative for non-Myriad-affiliated diagnosticians to consult.