U. s. Genomics has built a database of these patterns, which it calls bar codes, for many bacterial species and strains.

On March 29th a federal district court in New York made a ruling that, taken at face value, turns America's approach to the patent protection of genes on its head.

Flashes of light from the labels are recorded like a bar code and compared with the U. S. Genomics database to identify the organism that the DNA came from.