Stem Cell Patents on Trial

With the Senate about to vote on opening the federal research spigots for stem cell research, the California-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights has petitioned the Patent and Trademark Office to void James Thomson's keystone patents on the technology, the Wall Street Journal reports this morning. You can read what I've written on this subject in PLoS Medicine, here and here.

The folks at WARF should have seen this coming. They've been making unreasonable royalty claims for using their stem cell lines, which is discouraging academic researchers and small firms from pursuing certain lines of research. It also would up the ante for researchers funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which will be spending $3 billion of taxpayer money on stem cell research. Supporting patent lawyers at another state's university is probably not what the taxpayers had in mind when they approved Prop 71 in California.

This is a classic case of how the rush to patent every basic science insight can hamstring medical research, especially when a field is in its early stages like stem cells. Bravo to John Simpson at the Foundation for taking on this fight.