Who Owns Your Genes? Intellectual Property And The Human Genome

[Guest guest]

Who Owns Your Genes? Intellectual Property And The Human Genome

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=76111

Rarely do the ins and outs of patent law spark impassioned public

controversy, but, as recently demonstrated by Crichton's

bestseller Next, gene patenting is an exception. Patenting

proponents see DNA as just another realm of discovery, and patents

as the key to biotechnology's treasures; others believe that DNA

patents can stifle scientific progress, are morally wrong, or

attempt to put nature itself under patent holders' dominion. Still

others believe that while gene patents are fine in principle, our

creaky patent system should be refined to better deal with DNA-based

inventions.

On July 10 the Genetics & Public Policy Center will host policy

makers and the media for another in its regular series of Genetic

Perspectives on Policy Seminars (GenePOPS), " Who Owns Your Genes?

Intellectual Property and the Human Genome. " A panel of experts will

address such questions as:

- Should elements of the human genome be patentable?

- Who really owns DNA patents? And what, exactly, do they give

ownership of?

- Do gene patents foster or stifle innovation?

- How might patent reform affect DNA patents?

The seminar is co-sponsored by Duke University's Institute for

Genome Sciences & Policy. The event will be open to the public, and

is on the record.

Moderator

Kathy Hudson, director, Genetics and Public Policy Center, s

Hopkins University

Panel

- Barbara Caulfield, executive vice president & general counsel for

Affymetrix, Inc.

- Cook-Deegan, director, Center for Genome Ethics, Law &

Policy, Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy, Duke University

- Steve Haro, senior advisor & communications director, Office of

U.S. Representative Xavier Becerra

- F. Kieff, associate professor of law at Washington

University, St. Louis, and fellow at the Hoover Institute, Stanford

University

2:00 p.m. EDT Tuesday, July 10, 2007

National Press Club

529 14th Street, N.W. -- 13th Floor

Washington, D.C. 20045