________________________________________________________________________________ Washington Post Md. Gene Researcher Draws Fire On Filings By Justin Gillis, Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, October 26, 1999; Page E01 A maverick gene researcher who told Congress last year that he expected to receive patents on "100 to 300" bits of human genetic material has filed preliminary applications on about 6,500 such gene sequences in the space of a month. J. Craig Venter, the Rockville scientist who has been a lightning rod for criticism since he announced plans to unravel all human genes as a commercial venture, is drawing fresh controversy with the announcement. But he said his plans have not really changed and his critics don't understand U.S. patent law. Celera Genomics Corp., Venter's Rockville company, says it has unraveled about a third of the human body's genetic instructions in one month and expects to publish a full gene map next year, five years before the original deadline set by the federal government. Mapping the genetic code promises to open up new possibilities for understanding and treating such ailments as cancer, AIDS and Alzheimer's disease. The potential profit and glory have set off intensive jockeying among researchers. To Celera's many critics, including academic researchers locked in a race with Venter to be first to publish a gene map, the disclosure that the company has already filed 6,500 patent applications comes as proof of their longstanding argument that Venter is out to profiteer at the expense of public welfare. "I think it's going to inhibit work on these genes," said Robert Waterston, director of a gene-sequencing center at Washington University. "I worry that both companies and people will not invest their time and effort into something if they think that things are tied up." In sworn testimony before Congress last year, Venter said he expected to obtain no more than 100 to 300 genetic patents, and then only after careful study of their potential usefulness as treatments. He said he would put most of his data in the public domain for free, making it difficult for any researcher to stake out big patent claims on the human genetic code. "Our actions will make the human genome unpatentable," Venter said then. The issue of gene patents has long been controversial. A clear body of law has developed in the United States and other Western countries that genes can be patented, but many academic researchers feel nonetheless that a sort of gold rush is underway to stake out excessively broad claims based on thin research. These critics fear that such broad, sloppy patents will slow medical progress. "It puts us in a situation where there is such a tangled meshwork of patents and licenses that downstream research is actually inhibited," said Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, which is competing with Venter. "A situation where somebody with a good idea is actually prohibited from pursuing it is not the way the public will benefit." Some academic researchers have been excoriating Venter over the past two days after his patent statistics were reported in the Los Angeles Times and several British newspapers. They are accusing him of promising Congress one thing and doing another. But Venter said yesterday that his critics were misreading his intentions. The patent applications filed to date are "provisional" applications that establish the date of a discovery, Venter said. Such applications, permitted by U.S. law since 1995, can be filed cheaply and give a company one year to file a full patent application, which is more detailed and more expensive. The company's commercial interests are protected during that year. Many companies--particularly in fast-moving, competitive industries such as biotechnology--file provisional patents as soon as they believe they've found something useful, then spend the next year deciding whether the application is really worth pursuing. Many of these applications are subsequently abandoned, though few companies will disclose exact numbers on how many they abandon. Executives of these companies see the provisional applications as an essential competitive strategy--if they don't file first, they reason, somebody else will. "Everybody all over the world is working on the same thing," said Kenneth J. Burchfiel, a top patent lawyer in Washington who has no involvement with Celera or Venter. "Whoever plants that stake first potentially is going to get a patent on that [gene] sequence." Celera expects to keep filing provisional patent applications, possibly totaling 20,000 or 30,000 by the time all genes are mapped. But Venter said a great many of those applications will be abandoned as it becomes clear the gene sequences specified in them are not medically useful. When he's through, Venter said, he expects Celera to have roughly the number of patents he told Congress he would have--a few hundred, not several thousand. "There's a lot of people out there that want to make hay about anything we're doing," Venter said. "It's scare-mongering, and it's doing harm to the American public's ability to understand this complex field." One thing is clear: As fast as Celera may be moving, other companies are far ahead of it in filing patents on genetic information. One of them is Human Genome Sciences Inc. of Rockville, with which Venter was once associated. That company, using a different research method than Celera's, has filed patent applications far more detailed than Venter's on about 6,750 human genes that it believes to be medically useful. Venter said he had no ultimate control over how many gene patents will spring from Celera's research because big drug companies can subscribe to the company's database, use it to make their own discoveries and then file their own patent applications. Venter added, however, that he remained committed to handing out the complete human genetic sequence without charge by sometime next year. He said the gene map would be put on a high-capacity computer disk, known as a DVD, and given to any researcher who wants it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/feed/a42448-1999oct26.htm ________________________________________________________________________________ no copyright 1999 rolux.org - no commercial use without permission. is a moderated mailing list for the advancement of minor criticism. more information: mail to: majordomo@rolux.org, subject line: , message body: info. further questions: mail to: rolux-owner@rolux.org. archive: http://www.rolux.org