Rein in patents, panel urges
http://www.sciencemag.org 310 25 November 2005 p.1259

It's relatively easy to claim ownership of biological information in the United States--perhaps too easy, says a National Academy of Sciences panel. "[F]uture discoveries in genomics and proteomics that would benefit the public health and wellbeing could be thwarted by an increasingly complex intellectual property regime," the panel warned in a report released last week.
The panel suggests that scientists limit their patent applications to "useful" proteins or nucleic acids. Basic scientists using patented material in their research--known as "experimental use"--should not be liable for patent infringement, said the panel, co-chaired by Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman and attorney Roderick McKelvie of Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. The group also wants to raise the so-called obviousness bar that patents on genomic or proteomic sequences must clear. And the report calls for better ways to share sequence and structure data internationally.
Patent attorney Gerald Murphy of Birch, Stewart, Kolasch & Birch in Falls Church, Virginia, welcomes the call for closer scrutiny of applications on obviousness and more freedom for bench scientists. "Those are areas [of patent power] that should be weakened a bit," he says.

Web Link: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol310/issue
5752/s-scope.dtl