German Genome Problems: Industry Proposes Solution

Germany's Industrial Funding Association, the Forderverein, whichconsists of eight of the largest German pharmaceutical companies, has told the Research Ministry that it is waiving the right of its member companies to have privileged information reading access to genomic and cDNA sequence information generated within the German Human Genome Project.

This initiative, it says, should resolve the conflict within the international scientific community over the German Project's rules, which give the Forderverein member companies the three months' privileged reading access. This has been seen by the international human genome scientific community as violating a community agreement to make sequence data from publicly-funded large human genome-sequencing centers immediately available on the Internet. Researchers, especially those from the USA and UK, have threatened to exclude German scientists from international collaborations in the Human Genome Project and to block their access to international sequence databases.

According to the Forderverein, at the heart of the problem lies differences between European and US patent laws. Gene sequences can be the subject matter of a patentable invention only when their function and industrial application are defined, and to meet these requirements needs time. European patent laws exclude any composition of matter patents on genes whose sequences have already been published, while US patent law offers scientists a one-year grace period after publication in which to seek full patent protection. So immediate publication of sequence information puts European researchers at a competitive disadvantage, it says, adding that there is thus a clear need to harmonize international patent laws.