Report of the Committee on Intellectual Property Rights in Genomic and Protein-Related Inventions

This committee, a joint collaboration of the Committee on Science, Technology, and Law and the Science, Technology, Economic Policy Board, reviewed the patenting and licensing of human genetic material and proteins, which represents an extension of intellectual property rights to naturally occurring biological material and scientific information, much of it well upstream of drugs and other disease therapies. The study will document the types of patents that have been issued and to whom (or applied for and by whom), differences in the criteria being applied by the U.S. and other major patent offices to the examination of such applications, and, to the extent, possible, the licensing arrangements for different types of patented materials. In view of the substantial evidence that patents play an important role in certain kinds of biomedical innovations, especially the development of therapeutic drugs, the committee will carefully consider the impact of its recommendations on investments in R&D and the commercialization of their results. A pre- published report of the committee has been issued on November 17, 2005. Press Release To View the Report