A California-based effort to ease patent restrictions on the research use of human embryonic stem cells
last week suffered a severe blow when a federal court of appeals
ruled in favor of a Wisconsin organization known as WARF.
At the heart of the matter is the
question of who profits from stem cell research along with whether
the patents stifle scientific research.
The ruling came Wednesday in a legal
action brought by Consumer Watchdog of Santa Monica. The effort was
supported by the former president of California stem cell agency,
Alan Trounson, and Jeanne Loring, head of the stem cell program at
Scripps in La Jolla, Ca. Doug Melton and Chad Cowan, both of
Harvard, also backed the challenge.
The lawsuit was filed in a case involving the
Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and involved work by
Jamie Thomson of the University of Wisconsin and of UC Santa Barbara.
Consumer Watchdog said that Thomson deserved credit for being first
to isolate and maintain human embryonic stem cells. But the
organization said that “his achievement was not the result of his
having created a patentable invention.” Consumer Watchdog's brief
said that the work involved was “obvious.” One of the main
reasons for Thomson’s achievement, the organization said was
that “he had access to human embryos and financial support
that other researchers did not have.”
A federal court of appeals in
Washington, D.C., said Consumer Watchdog had no standing to sue to
overturn WARF patents.
The court said that because Consumer
Watchdog “has not identified a particularized, concrete interest in
the patentability" of the work or shown “any injury in
fact...it lacks standing to appeal” earlier decisions in favor of
WARF.
It is unclear what the next step is in
the eight-year-old dispute. John M. Simpson, the stem cell spokesman
for the Consumer Watchdog, said,
"We are reviewing the decision and considering our options. It's important to remember that because of our challenge WARF's claims were substantially narrowed as the patent went through the PTO (patent office) process."
WARF has not responded to a request for
comment from the California Stem Cell Report.
Consumer Watchdog is represented in the
matter by the Public Patent Foundation of New York, which
successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court last year that
genes cannot be patented because they occur naturally in nature.
Here is a link to legal documents and other material in the case. Last week's decision can be found below.
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