Then, on October 5, an HHS spokesperson said that Secretary Sullivan would be briefed on the situation by the end of that week, and that he would issue his decision "shortly thereafter" on whether NIH should shelve the patents or respond to objections raised in the PTO rejection and continue with the process.
The partial DNA sequences covered in the patents, also known as expressed tag sequences (ESTs), are thought to be useful tools to locate complete gene sequences. But NIH, which saw the possibility that publication of these partial sequences could preclude a later patent on the entire sequence, submitted patent applications. Many in the research community saw the applications as unnecessary and obstructive to progress in the Human Genome Project (Scott Veggeberg, The Scientist, April 27, 1992, page 1).
More than five months into the search for a new Human Genome Project (HGP) director, the hunt continues, with ...
