Well, that made me furious, mostly because corporations can now hold the copyright on human genes, and the person from whom those genes were obtained is not entitled to even a small royalty no matter how much money they make for the corporation. The story is very close to nonfiction, sadly.
to be fair, there are reasonable explanations for this. patents (and copyright in general) are established to provide motivation for the intellectual work that our society finds valuable. lab work is tedious and expensive, we need to give companies a reason to commit enormous resources to these projects. the laws that protect designer drugs against cheap genetic knockoffs aren't there to protect a megacorporation's current profits, they're there to provide the motivation to create tomorrow's designer drug (though i doubt many lawyers or ceos concern themselves with the motivations behind the practice).
on the other hand, having a genetic pattern isn't something that needs to be motivated. no effort involved. if you've been born with a natural immunity then huzzah, what do you do with it? the one action in this story that needed to be motivated was going to donate a sample and only reason why conflict existed was a missing clause in the waiver. an offer of fifty bucks to collect samples is likely all the motivation required.
if patent laws were changed to give a percentage to the original genetic source then the likely result would be that companies would try to develop genes from non-specific sources since collecting samples would just open you up to litigation. a modern equivalent is found in software companies that rarely listen to someone pitch an idea (unless its being given away) in case it turns out to be something they're currently developing.
so, overall, the result is slower development. the exact opposite intention of patent enforcement.
I can easily believe how a normal member of the public with limited resources, no paper trail, and a small-time lawyer could be crushed by a big corporation. A celebrity doctor with a well-established document trail? Not so much.
even the first victory seems unlikely (though possible). gene splicing would probably leave distinctive markers, it's a simple matter to test genetic material from your childhood to show the early presence of the gene, there is a limit paper trail showing that you were the first to file suit.
overall this is another politically charged story that doesn't explore new ground and isn't going to convince someone that doesn't already agree with you. it's here to whip up indignation.
