The challenge to the WARF/Jamie Thomson patents/IP on human embryonic stem cells (hESC) is at an end. The US Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Earlier, the USPTO had turned down the challenge leading to a winding road in the courts. What do you all think of this stem cell IP challenge and the outcome? The hESC IP includes 3 patents: 5,843,780, 6,200,806, and 7,029,913. For two great stories with helpful background on this development see here and here by David Jensen and Bradley Fikes, respectively. Scripps …Read More
embryonic stem cell patents
By Jeanne Loring. On Wednesday afternoon at the ISSCR meeting in Boston, Jamie Thomson gave a talk about the history of human pluripotent stem cells. There were probably only a dozen people in the audience of around 3,000 who were working on human ES cells around the same time that Jamie and Joseph Itskovitz-Eldor were collaborating on the first derivation of human ES cells, which was published in 1998. I found myself laughing (quietly- honest!) at Jamie’s recollections- Mike West approaching him to offer …Read More