Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Thursday, January 19, 2006

Preventing patents from becoming access barriers

Geertrui Van Overwalle and three co-authors, Models for facilitating access to patents on genetic inventions, Nature Reviews Genetics, February 2006. Only this abstract is free online for non-subscribers, at least so far:
The genetics community is increasingly concerned that patents might lead to restricted access to research and health care. We explore various measures that are designed to render patented genetic inventions accessible to further use in research, and to diagnosis and/or treatment. They include the often-recited research or experimental-use exemption, conventional one-to-one licensing and compulsory licensing, as well as patent pools and clearing-house mechanisms. The last two alternatives deserve special attention in the area of human genetics.