USPTO to Reconsider Stem Cell Patents

Responding to pressure from consumer watchdog groups the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Right and the Public Patent Foundation, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has agreed to take another look at stem cell patents that many say are much too broad. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, or WARF, holds the three patents, based on […]

Responding to pressure from consumer watchdog groups the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Right and the Public Patent Foundation, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has agreed to take another look at stem cell patents that many say are much too broad.

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, or WARF, holds the three patents, based on University of Wisconsin scientist James Thomson's work in 1998. Thomson isolated human stem cells for the first time, but the two groups challenging the patents say the real credit goes to Martin Evans and Gail Martin, who discovered human stem cells in 1981. They even got a third party quote:

Dr. Jeanne Loring, a stem cell scientist at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, filed a statement supporting the groups' challenges.

"The real discovery of embryonic stem cells was by Martin Evans, Matt Kaufman, and Gail Martin in 1981, and none of these scientists considered patenting them," said Loring. "It is outrageous that WARF claimed credit for this landmark discovery nearly 15 years after it was made."

Previous Wired News coverage on the patents.