Playing God? by Peters Ted

Author:Peters, Ted
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-136-72428-2
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Should the Government Hold Patents?

Now, let us turn to the second large question raised by the Venter affair: Should the U.S. National Institutes of Health itself seek patents and hold the power to license?29 Past NIH director Bernadine Healy said yes, arguing that NIH patents would best support new product development in the private sector. The NIH motive was not primarily to seek financial return for the government, but rather to gain patent rights and then disseminate the knowledge to promote the development of new products elsewhere. The avowed purpose was to enable the NIH to offer licenses to biotech companies, a process of technology transfer from government to private industry in order to stimulate research into genetically based diseases and the manufacture of drugs and other therapies based on knowledge of these sequences.

Publicly opposing Healy, then NCHGR director James Watson said no, blasting the initial filing by Craig Venter as a land grab, a preemptive strike that would likely promote a worldwide stampede to garner patents on essentially meaningless pieces of DNA. The basic problem, as Watson saw it, was that the NIH patenting policy would foster secrecy among scientists; it would destroy the fragile practice of open sharing of information among scientists around the world.

Watson was right, in my judgment and in the judgment of many scientists. Anger toward the United States flared up around the world. For example, David Owen of the United Kingdom’s Medical Research Council (MRC) retaliated by filing hundreds of patent applications, saying that his government wanted an international agreement that no country would seek patents on gene sequences of unknown utility. Until such an agreement could be reached, the British government would file patent applications to protect its own research.30 French geneticist Daniel Cohen spoke for many critics when he told the press that there were two big problems with NIH patenting: “The first is moral. You can’t patent something that belongs to everyone. It’s like trying to patent the stars. The second is economic. By patenting something without knowing the use of it, you inhibit industry. This could be catastrophic.”31

A public fight between Healy and Watson erupted. Watson stomped out of NIH. Healy accepted his resignation. When the Democrats took over the White House, Harold Varmus took over NIH and Francis Collins became director of NCHGR. The NIH patent applications were dropped. Yet, the controversy continues.32

The central issue is the fear on the part of scientists that government patents, and in some cases even private patents, will obstruct the free flow of information regarding the state of nature that belongs inherently to the public domain. In part, such a fear is well founded, because some researchers will be tempted to keep what they learn secret until the patent application is well under way.

In another sense, however, the fear is less well founded. Patent law itself requires a rigorous disclosure. The patent makes the knowledge public. A patent gives exclusive right to make, use, or sell a product; it does not keep the knowledge of that product secret.

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