The American Civil Liberties Union, which is waiting to find out if the U.S. Supreme Court will hear its challenge to gene patents in its case against Myriad Genetics, is turning to the court of public opinion. The ACLU has launched an Internet campaign dubbed “Taking Back Our Genes,” aimed to have individuals tell their story of how gene patents hurt them.

A U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that companies have the right to patent genes in a case in which the ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation challenged patents held by Myriad Genetics relating to genes associated with breast and ovarian cancer. The U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing a petition to hear the case. The court was expected in late February to decide on whether it would hear the case, but on February 21, it postponed making a decision.

The patents granted to Myriad give the company the exclusive right to perform diagnostic tests on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes and to prevent any researcher from even looking at the genes without first getting permission from Myriad. The ACLU contends that Myriad's monopoly on the BRCA genes makes it impossible for women to access alternate tests or get a second opinion about their results and allows Myriad to charge a high rate for its tests.

The ACLU is inviting people who say they or a loved one have been harmed by gene patents to send in a photograph of themselves holding a sign that reads, “I take back my genes” and to tell their story. The campaign page can be found online here.

“Patents on genes limit the ability of scientists and health researchers to learn more about gene-to-disease correlations and limit progress in fields that could benefit the health of all people, resulting in increasing prices for tests, impediments to alternative research, and barriers to patients' access to potentially life-saving technology,” wrote Eric Hoffman, a policy campaigner with Friends of the Earth, in a guest blog posting on the campaign website.

In July, The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that the composition of matter claims covering isolated DNA and cDNA of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are patent-eligible under the United States Patent Act. The Federal Circuit, however, ruled that five of six method claims relating to the BRACAnalysis product failed to satisfy the threshold for patentability.

The ruling reversed a decision of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York that the found compositions of matter claims for the Myriad’s BRACAnalysis product were invalid. At the time, Myriad CEO Peter Meldrum hailed the ruling as a win for the “agriculture, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, as well as the hundreds of millions of people whose lives are bettered by the products these industries develop based on the promise of strong patent protection.”