Have you looked at the lawsuits of Ariad et al v. Eli Lilly?
I would think that the government is trying to avoid having stuff like that clog up the patent and legal system. The NF-kappa B suit was a complete joke.
If ARIAD had won that frivolous case, it would have made the a mockery of the patent system and drug discovery.
You would basically have scientists discovering genes or what have you, found in nature for eons, patenting them, and then suing pharma companies who have been using part of that gene or full gene in a drug for 5, 10, 20, 30+ years, claiming they were violating a patent owned by the scientist for 1 month, and in the patent system for a couple of years
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