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Though deciphering the entire human genetic blueprint is still a few years away, scientists have begun laying claim to the stretches of DNA whose codes they have succeeded in cracking. In recent years researchers have flooded the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office with applications for thousands of genes and gene fragments--and they have stirred a lot of controversy in the process...
Geneticists have lately been filing patent applications for these ESTs anyway, figuring that it's best to protect their turf now and go spelunking around in it later. In a science that prizes precision above all else, this can be an odd way to do business. "I would guess that in many cases the scientists didn't even examine all the material," says Bruce Lehman, commissioner of the Patent and Trademark Office...
...only can such filings be sloppy genetics, they can also be bad business. est applications may lead to so-called submarine patents, claims that are made today and then vanish, only to reappear when some unsuspecting scientist finds something useful to do with genes hidden in the patent. To prevent this, Lehman requires that est applications include no more than 10 genetic sequences. Each 10 after that requires a separate application--and a separate filing fee. "Companies will now have an incentive to file more selective applications," says Lehman...
More troubling than determining how to patent the genome is the larger question of whether anyone ought to be laying claim to human DNA at all. This is partly an economic issue. If the entire genetic schematic is pre-emptively owned by the research teams studying it now, where is the incentive for independent scientists--often sources of great innovation--to work on it later? Licensing costs, warns Jeffrey Kahn, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Bioethics, could hold medical progress hostage. Patenting proponents insist that an equally persuasive argument could be made that the large genome...
...anyone's owning the rights to any part of the human form. Besides, if the first anatomist to spot, say, the pancreas was not granted title to it, why should modern genome-mapping scientists be able to claim even a single gene? As Kahn points out, "You could patent a system for mining gold from ore. We don't let people patent the gold." That kind of argument is grounded not in law but in the very idea of what it means to be human--an issue that even the highest federal court is not likely to settle...