New Scientist: Hwang Could Keep Patents

Korea's stem cell program may have lost its brightest star to fraud, but his intellectual property claims may live on. According to an investigative report just released by the New Scientist, Hwang Woo-Suk can still win patents on cloning human embryos for therapeutic purposes despite the fact the research behind those claims was made up.

Hwang and his Korean colleagues filed a patent claim with the World Intellectual Property Office that would cover more than 100 countries. It's unclear if anyone has filed in the U.S. But the Korean press has reported that University of Pittsburgh researcher Gerald Schatten, who co-authored the paper in Science where Hwang unveiled his invention, has claimed at least partial ownership of the Korean scientist's patent. The university, which has not commented on Schatten's patent claims, is investigating its star stem cell researcher.

Officials at the British patent house explained the rationale behind granting patents on technologies that haven't been proven. "“European patent examiners are not interested in whether something will work or not. The commercial world, which is where patents belong, will judge. As long as an invention is not clearly contrary to scientific laws – like time travel – research has no bearing on the grant of a patent,” Lawrence Smith-Higgens told the New Scientist.

Under international harmonization treaties, the same would be true at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.