Patent ruling could remove chill on research
Sacramento Bee (California)
In the mid-1990s, James A. Thomson of the University of Wisconsin helped launch the field of regenerative medicine by isolating embryonic stem cells and perfecting methods for self-perpetuating them in a laboratory.
Thomson’s work helped fuel the current push to study these cells, understand how they function and see if they can help cure spinal cord injuries, juvenile diabetes and other diseases. While Thomson deserves historic credit for his contributions, his university should not be allowed to own a patent on these cells, limiting how they can be used, by whom and at what cost.
This week, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a preliminary decision that could loosen such restrictions on embryonic stem cell research and help scientists across the nation, particularly here in California. The office’s examiners said that Thomson’s cells appeared to be the same as, or a variation of, cells described in earlier scientific papers.
Although the matter may not be settled for several years, the preliminary decision increases chances that the patent office will revoke at least some of the three patents the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation holds on Thomson’s research.
It should also spark a long-needed debate on the nation’s patent laws, which are being abused as researchers and companies expand the frontiers of biomedical science. Patent laws were created to protect true inventions, such as Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone. Yet it is doubtful that framers of U.S. patent laws ever intended them to apply to groups of cells, genes and other natural wonders that scientists have “discovered,” and will continue to discover, as they try to unlock the mysteries of basic biology.
In the case of the Wisconsin foundation, it has told businesses they cannot work with human embryonic stem cells unless they pay fees of $75,000 to $400,000 each. Academics must pay about $500.
The foundation has also granted an exclusive license to the Geron Corp. to control heart, nerve and pancreatic cells derived from human embryonic stem cells. As the New York Times recently put it, “Any company wanting to market a treatment for heart attacks, Parkinson’s disease or diabetes using human embryonic stem cells would eventually have to come to terms with Geron.”
Any potential cures involving stem cells are still years away, and for now, federal funding restrictions have hurt this field far more than the University of Wisconsin’s patents. But as more funding becomes available from California’s $3 billion stem cell research institute and other sources, the Wisconsin patents stand as a potential obstacle to research. That’s why it’s refreshing to see the U.S. patent office issue its preliminary decision.
Nonprofits such as the Public Patent Foundation and the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights deserve credit for prompting this patent reconsideration. Ultimately, Congress needs to address the larger issue: Human body parts — including cells, genes and body organs that scientists soon will be growing in laboratories — belong to all of humanity. They should not be patented like light bulbs.
