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Sponsored
by the U.S. Department of
Energy Human Genome Program
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DOE Human Genome Program Contractor-Grantee Workshop IV
Santa Fe, New Mexico, November 13-17, 1994
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Introduction to the Workshop
The electronic form of this document may be cited in the following style: Abstracts scanned from text submitted for November 1994 DOE Human Genome Program Contractor-Grantee Workshop. Inaccuracies have not been corrected. |
The Role of Patents in Technology Transfer in the Human Genome ProjectRebecca S. Eisenberg, J.D. The Human Genome Project provides government funds for generating vast amounts of information in the hope that the information will ultimately be put to use in developing new products and processes for the diagnosis and treatment of human disease. Much of this information is generated in government and university laboratories that cannot undertake the downstream research and development necessary to translate basic research discoveries into commercial products. Technology transfer to the private sector is thus a prerequisite to the development of genome-related products, but achieving effective technology transfer in such a project is a matter of some complexity. Federal policy since 1980 has reflected a presumption that the most effective way to promote technology transfer and commercial development in the private sector of discoveries made in the course of government-sponsored research is to patent them. Yet the reactions of industry trade groups to the filing of patent applications by the National Institutes of Health on thousands of partial complementary DNA (cDNA) sequences of unknown function that were identified in government laboratories suggest that the prevailing pro-patent policy may oversimplify the complexities involved in technology transfer. This controversy provides a useful focal point for considering when the results of government-sponsored research should be patented and when they should be dedicated to the public domain.
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