Stem cell patents upheld

The US Patent and Trademark Office has upheld the two remaining stem cell patents out of a contested trio held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), according to the final ruling posted last week by the USPTO. The third patent was upheld in a ruling last month (read more linkurl:here);http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54389/ and can still be challenged by appeal. Last week's rulings are final and cannot be appealed. "The patent office has conducted a thoughtful and thorough review of all three patents and we applaud this final decision on our two most important base stem cell patents," Carl Gulbrandsen, managing director of WARF said in a statement. The two patents are known as "780" and "806" (for US Patents. 5,843,780 and 6,200,806) and cover technology on culturing and maintaining human embryonic stem cells from pre-implantation embryos. This was the original work of linkurl:James Thomson,;http://ink.primate.wisc.edu/~thomson/jamie.html from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who led one of two research teams to successfully reprogram adult skin cells into pluripotent cells last linkurl:November.;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/53873/ The three WARF patents have been under examination by the USPTO, beginning in linkurl:October, 2006,;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/home/25037/ when challenges were brought by the Public Patent Foundation in New York and the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) in Los Angeles. The two organizations have argued that the patents impede stem cell research and that the technology they cover has been pioneered by other researchers before Thomson. John Simpson, director of the stem cell project at FTCR, and Jeanne Loring, from the Public Patent Foundation, could not be immediately reached for this article.UPDATE: In regard to the decision on the patents, John Simpson told The Scientist: "This was already a huge victory for us on these patents. When they were confronted with our challenge last year, WARF substantially eased its licensing requirements. That change in behavior was tremendously useful for researchers." WARF made several amendments to the patent details last linkurl:year.;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/home/43099/ While the ruling on the two patents is final, "we can appeal the decision on the 913 patent and we will," Simpson added.

Stem cell patents upheld

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