Patent Law
Patented Genes Slow Research, Panelists Say
Posted Aug 13, 2007, 06:10 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Best-selling author Michael Crichton blames a 1912 legal opinion for opening the door to the patenting of genes. And he’d like to see the door closed.
The opinion upheld a patent on an “isolated and purified” form of the active ingredient of adrenaline, the so-called fight-or-flight stress hormone. Parke-Davis v. H.K. Mulford, 189 F.R. 95. Now the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is patenting “isolated and purified genes,” even when their function is unknown.
“We’re seeing patents and don’t know exactly what they’re patents for,” said Crichton, whose last novel, Next, concerns genetics and the law. Crichton was a speaker during the ABA Annual Meeting in San Francisco, the ABA Journal reports.
Such patents inhibit academic research and the knowledge that comes with it, said Lori Andrews, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law who has written on the topic.
“Some gene patent holders have stopped research on their genes by competitors,” Andrews said. “I have a First Amendment right to donate money to a political campaign, but can’t donate my breast cancer or asthma genes to a researcher.”
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