BABY GENDER SELECTION KIT PATENTED?

From CBS: A kit sold on the Internet by a company called GenSelect is reportedly making a difference in whether you paint the nursery pink or blue. GenSelect claims it can turn picking the sex of your baby from a crapshoot into a slam-dunk. "We've tallied up a 96 percent success rate," says Jill Sweazy, GenSelect's co-founder. 

Of course, GenSelect is being likened to PT Barnum: there is a sucker born every minute.  In response to such doubts, GenSelect's Sweazy points out that "Opinion's opinion. You can find someone contrary to antibiotics. We were just granted our United States patent, and they don't grant patents to wives' tales."  Well heck -- if it has a patent, it must work. Right? 

Not really -- it is a common misconception that patents are only issued to inventions that actually work.  If this was true, every ailment known to man would be cured (cancer, AIDS, hair loss).  In order to patentable, a disclosed invention only has to be novel (never done before), nonobvious, and useful.  If a patentee provides a use that is substantial and credible, the patent office must defer to the applicant.  Only in rare cases will patent applications be rejected by the Patent Office on the basis of failing to provide a substantial and credible utiltiy (perpetual motion machines, reincarnation, etc.)

So it isn't surprising that GenSeect may have received a patent on a gender selection kit.  Far more interesting, however, is what did GenSelect actually patent?  According to U.S. Patent No. 6,610,331 (the only patent listing the Sweazy's as inventors in this field) the Sweazy's claim:

1. A nutriceutical which improves the natural fertility process comprising:

(a) L-Arginine 50-500 mg;.
(b) L-Cysteine 10-100 mg;
(c) Selenium 10-400 mcg;
(d) Vitamin C 50-2000 mg;
(e) Vitamin E 100 iU-1000 iU;
(f) Zinc 10-100 mg;
(g) Astragalus;
(h) Pycnogenol 10-100 mg;
(i) Vitamin B-6 10-200 mg;
(j) Para-aminobenzoic acid (PABA) 50-300 mg;
(k) Vitamin A 1000-10,000 iU;
(l) Folic Acid 400-1000 mcg; and
(m) at least one phytoestrogen, wherein the at least one phytoestrogen is an isoflavone, coumestan, lignin, or any combination thereof.

So the '331 patent covers a "nutriceutical" (actually it is a neutraceutical) of several types of vitamins etc. The patented claims don't actually cover a gender selection kit -- more like a soup of various vitamins.  Is it scam?  Well, you have a 50/50 chance of the "gender kit" being right at any point in time.

Moral of the story: just because it says "patented" it isn't guaranteed to work and before assuming that the patent actually covers the product or "method" being sold, check out the actually claims first. Caveat emptor!