The changing relationship between patent owners and researchers

摘要

It is a common place observation that drug development relies increasingly on academic and other noncommercial basic research. At the same time, the distinction between noncommercial basic research and commercial development is less and less clear. Patents on isolated gene sequences, transgenic animals and laboratory methods have all been in the news and in the courts. The Myriad dispute on the patentability of cDNA and its uses includes a specific debate on whether such patents threaten basic research - a question the US Supreme Court may well consider in the near future [1]. Currently, private arrangements tend to determine the extent to which commercially motivated patent owners assert their patents to limit basic research. However, courts in the USA are increasingly being asked to weigh in.