Munich

The European Patent Office (EPO) has put patent applications involving human embryonic stem-cell technology on ice. And there are no immediate prospects for a thaw.

The EPO president, Alain Pompidou, said last week during the presentation of the organization's 2004 report that the EPO will not patent any embryonic stem-cell technology for the time being, because “there are too many ethical aspects that have not been resolved at the political level”.

The EPO and the European Union have different members and are ruled by different conventions. But the EPO needs to take note of the European Union's political climate, Pompidou said. The European Commission is deciding whether to fund research on human embryonic stem cells.

Because of the moratorium, the EPO has so far received only three applications involving human embryonic cells; none has yet been approved. The office has been inundated with appeals against them, and officials are concerned that any patent granted would trigger protests similar to those that surrounded patents for genetically modified organisms. In February 2000, activists from the environmental group Greenpeace bricked up the door to the organization's Munich headquarters.

The EPO worries that it would not get political backing to defend itself against such action in the wake of a human embryonic stem-cell patent.

Many European scientists are unhappy with the delay. Patent offices in the United States and many Asian counties, including South Korea, allow inventions involving human embryonic stem cells to be patented. “The EPO underestimates the economic damage this attitude will cause in Europe,” warns Oliver Brüstle of Germany's Institute for Reconstructive Neurobiology, one of the three applicants.

One hope remains for Brüstle and his colleagues. One of the applications, rejected last year, is making its way through the EPO's appeals procedure. It is being considered by the technical appeals board, which will give its judgement in October.

Siobhán Yeats, director for biotechnology at the EPO, says that if the board cannot settle the case on technical grounds, it may pass it on to the EPO's highest appeals board, the Enlarged Board of Appeal. The Enlarged Board rules on the fundamental patentability of inventions, and so could set a precedent.