Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

The global stem cell patent landscape: implications for efficient technology transfer and commercial development

Nature Biotechnology volume 25, pages 419–424 (2007)Cite this article

Characteristics of the complex and growing stem cell patent landscape indicate strategies by which public sector research institutions could improve the efficiency of intellectual property agreements and technology transfers in stem cells.

The debate over access to research tools essential for stem cell research and development has been waged most strongly over patents granted in the United States to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) for work done at the University of Wisconsin on embryonic stem cells1,2. Although those WARF patents are now being widely licensed, the concerns that they raised3,4,5,6,7 may soon be overshadowed by a more subtle but more chronic problem. Patent filing activity in stem cells has been growing steadily since the late 1990s. Given the particular characteristics of stem cells as a broadly enabling technology, many expect the field to be particularly susceptible to the emergence of a patent thicket8,9,10,11,12,13, also known in property rights theory as an 'anti-commons'14. In a patent thicket, the existence of many overlapping patent claims can cause uncertainty about freedom to operate, impose multiple layers of transaction costs and stack royalty payments beyond levels that can be supported by the value of single innovations. By blocking pathways to market and dampening investor interest in commercialization, a patent thicket has the potential to slow and skew the overall development of new technical applications.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: A core collection of published patent documents constructed to encompass all stem cell related technologies contains 10,681 applications and granted patents from the US Patent and Trademark Office, the European Patent Office and WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) filing system.
Figure 2: The core collection of US, EPO and PCT documents expanded to include the full 'patent family' for each document: the corresponding patent filing made in any of 60 additional countries on the same invention.
Figure 3: National contributions to the global stock of stem cell inventions indicated by the distribution by country of the first inventor listed and the first assignee listed in the 4,265 PCT applications in the core collection of stem cell documents identified in this study.
Figure 4: The distribution of ownership between private sector and public sector entities of granted US patents over stem cell technologies (a), and a breakdown of their ownership (b).

References

  1. Thompson, J.A. U.S. Patent No. 5,843,780 (1998).

  2. Thompson, J.A. U.S. Patent No. 6,200,806 (2001).

  3. Scheinfeld, R.C. & Bagley, H. N.Y. Law J. (27 September 2001).

  4. Rabin, S. Nat. Biotechnol. 23, 817–819 (2005).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Wadman, M. Nature 435, 272–273 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Taymor, K.S. et al. Nat. Biotechnol. 24, 411–414 (2006).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Loring, J.F. & Campbell, C. Science 311, 1716–1717 (2006).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Eisenberg, R.S. & Rai, A.K. in Handbook of Stem Cells (eds. Lanza, R. et al.) (Elsevier Academic, Burlington, Massachusetts, USA, 2004).

    Google Scholar 

  9. O'Connor, S.M. New Engl. Law Rev. 39, 665–714 (2005).

    Google Scholar 

  10. Giebel, L.B. Nat. Biotechnol. 23, 798–800 (2005).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Rao, M. et al. J. Alzheimers Dis. 8, 75–80 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Ebersole, T.J. et al. Stem cells — patent pools to the rescue? (Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein, & Fox P.L.L.C., Washington, DC, 2005).

    Google Scholar 

  13. Rohrbaugh, M.L. in Regenerative Medicine 2006 (National Institutes of Health, Washington, DC, 2006).

    Google Scholar 

  14. Heller, M.A. & Eisenberg, R.S. Science 280, 698–701 (1998).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Jaffe, A.B. & Lerner, J. Innovation and Its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System is Endangering Innovation and Progress, and What to Do About It (Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 2004).

    Google Scholar 

  16. Rai, A.K. & Eisenberg, R.S. Law Contemp. Probl. 289, 289–314 (2003).

    Google Scholar 

  17. Merges, R.P. Calif. Law Rev. 84, 1293–1393 (1996).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Shapiro, C. in Innovation Policy and the Economy (National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 2000).

    Google Scholar 

  19. Clark, J. et al. Patent pools: a solution to the problem of access in biotechnology patents? (US Patent and Trademark Office, Washington, DC, 2000).

  20. Graff, G. & Zilberman, D. Nat. Biotechnol. 19, 1179–1180 (2001).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Rai, A.K. in International Public Goods and Transfer of Technology Under the Globalized Intellectual Property Regime (eds. Reichman, J. & Maskus, K.) (Social Science Research Network Electronic Papers, 2004).

    Google Scholar 

  22. Brower, V. Nat. Biotechnol. 17, 139–141 (1999).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Filip, S. et al. J. Cell. Mol. Med. 8, 572–577 (2004).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. Hochedlinger, K. & Jaenisch, R. Nature 441, 1061–1067 (2006).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Bergman, K. & Graff, G.D. Collaborative IP Management for Stem Cell R&D (Center for Intellectual Property, Göteborg, Sweden, and Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture, Davis, California, USA, in the press).

  26. Atkinson, R.C. et al. Science 301, 174–175 (2003).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Graff, G.D. et al. Nat. Biotechnol. 21, 989–995 (2003).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  28. http://www.pipra.org

Download references

Acknowledgements

This study was a collaborative project of CIP in Göteborg, Sweden and PIPRA in Davis, California. The authors thank B. Heiden, A. Bennet, B. Edgar, W. Streitz and F. Fredh for insights and comments.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Karl Bergman is at the Göteborg International Bioscience Business School and Center for Intellectual Property Studies, Chalmers University of Technology and Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden mail@karlbergman.se,

    Karl Bergman

  2. Gregory D. Graff is at the Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture (PIPRA), University of California, Davis, California 95616, USA. gdgraff@ucdavis.edu,

    Gregory D. Graff

Authors
  1. Karl Bergman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Gregory D. Graff
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Bergman, K., Graff, G. The global stem cell patent landscape: implications for efficient technology transfer and commercial development. Nat Biotechnol 25, 419–424 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0407-419

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0407-419

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing