The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has upheld one of the three disputed University of Wisconsin patents on a technique for isolating and maintaining embryonic stem cells. But the two groups that have challenged the patents say they will continue their efforts to overturn that patent, and the two other related ones.
The patent office ruled preliminarily against the patents in April, saying that they had been initially issued in error because the process they described for isolating and maintaining a line of embryonic stem cells would have been obvious at the time to people in the field because of other scientists’ published work. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the patenting arm of the university’s Madison campus, then filed amendments to the patents to respond to those critiques.
The foundation, known as WARF, issued a news release today that called the patent office’s latest decision an affirmation that the “breakthcoarse discoveries” of James A. Thomson had been indeed worthy of patent protection.
The news drew a rapid response from critics of the patent.
“The battle is hardly over,” said the Public Patent Foundation of New York and the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights in California, in a statement released today. —Goldie Blumenstyk