Gene Research

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

The following are some observations from Sarah Sexton, who attended a
conference in England on Patent protection for the pharmaceutical
industry.  

------
My notes of our conversation.


It was an industry get together, not a policy thing.  Sarah attended as
a journalist.  In the quesiton and answer sessions, a query from the
floor was whether a patent could be given on genes, given that a lot of
the process of discovery was routine and thus obvious.   The speaker
said, you are quite right, and I am very worried that we are using the
old ways of protection for the new technologies.  The way to go may be
data protection, instead of patent protection.  Someone else said, yes,
you are quite right, you don't get a patent for being the first to
finish an obvious race.  Sarah mentioned, among other things, that under
EC database protection regimes, you don't have the same disclosure
obligations as one does under patents.  

In discussions about comparing patenting to mountaineering, one speaker
said, while the scientist have set their goals on the rarefied
atmosphere of camp three in the himalayas, our job (as patent agents) is
to prevent from anyone else even getting to the foot hills.  Everyone
nodded.  

There was encouragement that patents be written as broadly as possibly
-- the patents on drugs so far have used organic chemistry, and many
patent judges don't understand the new gene sciences.  So the hint was,
use terms they don't understand, and you can slip in broader concepts.

------

Jamie

-- 
James Love
Consumer Project on Technology
P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
love@cptech.org | http://www.cptech.org
202.387.8030, fax 202.234.5176