Eisenberg R S
University of Michigan Law School, Ann Arbor 48104, USA.
Nat Genet. 1997 Feb;15(2):125-30. doi: 10.1038/ng0297-125.
The United States patent system treats DNA sequences as large chemical compounds in determining their patentability. This approach has been helpful to those who seek to patent previously unidentified DNA sequences, but it may prove less advantageous from the perspective of those who elucidate biological functions and disease relevance of previously identified genes. A current controversy over patent rights for DNA sequences encoding leptin receptors provides a useful case study for illustrating some of the issues that are likely to arise in applying doctrine derived from chemical patent cases in the context of gene discovery.
美国专利制度在确定DNA序列的可专利性时，将其视为大型化合物。这种方法对那些寻求为先前未鉴定的DNA序列申请专利的人很有帮助，但从阐明先前已鉴定基因的生物学功能和疾病相关性的人的角度来看，可能证明其优势较小。目前关于编码瘦素受体的DNA序列专利权的争议，为说明在基因发现背景下应用源自化学专利案例的原则可能出现的一些问题，提供了一个有用的案例研究。
