"We were just
granted our United States patent, and they don't grant patents to wives'
tales."
-- GenSelect co-founder Jill Sweazy, to
CBS News
Phosita, a blog about patents and intellectual property law, examines
the GenSelect patent, and explains that "it is a common misconception
that patents are only issued to inventions that actually work... in
order to be patentable, a disclosed invention only has to be novel
(never done before), nonobvious, and useful."
GenSelect's US Patents:
- Nutriceuticals to "improve the natural fertility process"
- Kit and method for "increasing the chances of conceiving a child having a desired gender"
This 1989 paper
referenced in both patents concludes that "the influence of coital
timing on the sex ratio is... not a practical method to alter the sex
ratio", yet contrarily the GenSelect Web site insists that timing
intercourse and ovulation is "very important in the pre-conception
gender selection process".