Verbeure Birgit, van Zimmeren Esther, Matthijs Gert, Van Overwalle Geertrui
Centre for Intellectual Property Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Leuven, Belgium.
Trends Biotechnol. 2006 Mar;24(3):115-20. doi: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2006.01.002. Epub 2006 Jan 27.
There is increasing concern that overlapping patents in the field of genetics will create a costly and legally complex situation known as a patent thicket, which, along with the associated issues of accumulating royalty payments, can act as a disincentive for innovation. One potential means of preventing this is for the patent holders to enter into a so-called patent pool, such as those established in the electronics and telecommunications industries. Precedents for these also exist in the field of genetics, notably with the patents pertaining to the SARS genome. In this review, we initially address the patent pool concept in general and its application in genetics. Following this, we will explore patent pools in the diagnostic field in more detail, and examine some existing and novel examples of patent pools in genetics.
人们越来越担心，遗传学领域的重叠专利将造成一种成本高昂且法律复杂的局面，即所谓的专利丛林，这与累积专利许可费的相关问题一起，可能会对创新起到抑制作用。防止这种情况的一种潜在方法是专利持有人加入所谓的专利池，比如电子和电信行业建立的专利池。遗传学领域也存在这些专利池的先例，特别是与SARS基因组相关的专利。在本综述中，我们首先总体介绍专利池概念及其在遗传学中的应用。在此之后，我们将更详细地探讨诊断领域的专利池，并研究遗传学领域一些现有的和新颖的专利池实例。
