So this is who is involved!
Look how EU sets the rules out!"European Parliament directive on patenting
Directive 98/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of the 6 July 1998 on the legal
protection of biotechnological inventions, Official Journal L 213, 30/07/1998 p. 0013–0021 Article 5:
• The human body, at the various stages of its formation and development, and the simple
discovery of one of its elements, including the sequence or partial sequence of a gene, cannot
constitute patentable inventions.
• An element isolated from the human body or otherwise produced by means of a technical process,
including the sequence or partial sequence of a gene,may constitute a patentable invention, even if
the structure of that element is identical to that of a natural element.
• The industrial application of a sequence or a partial sequence of a gene must be disclosed
in the patent application.
Does that happen here?
And now we know who was involved right from the beginning, check out side bars.wwworm.biology.uh.edu/evodevo/lecture2/raff00.pdf"concern may motivate some institutions to
defer publication in precisely the circumstances
that it motivates other institutions to
make prompt disclosure. The difference
depends on whether they believe that preempting
future patents is good or bad.Apart
from concern about preserving their own
patent rights, public research sponsors and
publicly funded research performers may
worry that premature public disclosure could
prevent them from complying with their
mandate under the Bayh–Dole Act to promote
technology transfer and product development
by patenting research results. Indeed,
this concern was cited by former NIH director
Bernadine Healy in support of the decision to
file patent applications on the first ESTs identified
by Craig Venter when he was at NIH25."
"In fact, it does not seem that publication of
raw genomic DNA sequence will prevent the
issuance of patents on genes that are subsequently
found to lie within that sequence
under United States law. The situation in
Europe is less certain and awaits clarification of
national laws in response to a 1998 directive of
the European Parliament on the legal protection
of biotechnological inventions (BOX 5).
Although the patent system has not yet
resolved many of the legal issues that will
determine what portions of the human
genome may be patented, for the time being
there seems to be little threat that disclosure of
the human genome in the public domain will
leave future researchers who identify and characterize
genes with nothing left to patent."
more on above link on Evo Devo and how they did it!
Skytroll