Adam Mossoff is professor of law and co-director of academic programs of the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property at George Mason University School of Law.

The problem with much of the public debate about the challenge to patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes is that it’s focused on the wrong question. Are human genes patentable? Of course not. But Myriad’s patents are valid. The reason that both these statements are true goes to the very heart and purpose of the patent system.

Some of the confusion is caused by the mistaken belief that patents cover only technological inventions such as Thomas Edison’s light bulb (patent no. 223898), the sewing machine (the result of many patented inventions), or the Wright Brothers’ airplane (patent 821393) But the patent system has always protected many other kinds of discoveries, including new methods of making things and new “compositions of matter.”

Myriad's patents are the sort that launched the pharmaceuticals industry: isolated and purified molecules used in a scientific context.

Such patents include discoveries of molecules found both inside and outside of the human body, such as insulin, adrenalin and aspirin.

Of course, the patent system only protects new things. You cannot get a patent on the raw, untouched form of a molecule as it exists in nature.

However, you can get a patent for identifying, isolating and purifying something that already exists in the world. For example, the inventor of aspirin at the turn of the 20th century isolated and synthesized the active ingredient in willow bark, which people had chewed for thousands of years to relieve pain and fever.

The greatest confusion in the debate about the Myriad case stems from failing to understand this distinction. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court contributed to the confusion when it took the case to answer: “Are human genes patentable?” Patent experts scratched their heads, because the answer is undisputed: No, human genes in their naturally occurring form are not patentable.

But Myriad’s patents don’t cover genes in their naturally occurring, unisolated form, just as the aspirin patent did not cover chewable bark. Rather, the BRCA1 and BRCA2 patents claim the genes as isolated, purified and used in a scientific or medical context.

Thus, Myriad’s patents cover the same “composition of matter” that these patents have always covered, and which built the modern pharmaceutical industry in the early 20th century.

The American patent system has always rewarded the productive labors of inventors and scientists who found ways to make naturally occurring products useful to people. These innovations, and the multibillion-dollar investments it took to achieve them, have made possible the wonders of modern life. As a result, medical treatments and tests are developed and sold to patients, and humans live longer and better lives.