Appropriation simultanée, par les laboratoires
et les firmes, de la propriété intellectuelle dans le domaine des
biotechnologies : le cas des "Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms"
Roger Coronini*, Marie-Angèle de
Looze*, Pierre Puget#, Gérard Bley# and Shyama Ramani*
Affiliations
*Roger Coronini, Marie-Angèle de Looze and Shyama Ramani are researchers at INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique), in UPMF (Université Pierre Mendès France), BP 47, Grenoble cedex 9, France 38040.
#Pierre Puget and Gérard Bley are researchers at the CEA (Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique) in LETI (Laboratoire d'Electronique et des Technologies de l'Information), 17 rue des Martyrs, Grenoble cedex 9, France 38054.
Email for correspondence: Roger.Coronini@Grenoble.inra.fr
Now that the human genome has been
sequenced, attention has turned to the identification of the possible genetic
causes of various diseases. Single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs are DNA
sequence variations among individuals. They are very important for biomedical
research, because scientists are trying to examine, if there exists any
significant correlation between predisposition to specific diseases and the
presence of certain sets of SNPs in the human body. Publicly funded
laboratories and private businesses are attempting to associate specific SNPs,
or sets of SNPs, with various medical conditions, and to study the differences
in SNP patterns among various human populations. SNP mapping is perceived to be
such an important goal that a public-private initiative, the SNP Consortium
Ltd, has been set up in April 1999 for the purpose of providing genomic data
publicly: "Its mission is to develop up to 300,000 SNPs distributed evenly
throughout the human genome and to make the information related to these SNPs
available to the public without intellectual property restrictions." http://snp.cshl.org/
In order to identify the nature of
the , work being done in this upcoming field, and distinguish its leaders, this
article examines three questions: Who are principal researchers in the area
of SNPs? Who have applied for the greatest number of patents related to SNPs?
What are the leading themes in research in the area of SNPs? The answers to
the above questions are derived from an analysis of scientific publications,
which are used as an indicator of the creation of new knowledge, and patent
applications, which serve as a measure of the creation of new technology.
Figure 1: Scientific papers and patent applications relating to SNPs (1987–2001)
Leaders in Scientific Publications
Table 1: The most prolific authors of SNP-related papers
Table 2: The most cited authors
Leaders in patent publications
Table 3: Leading patentees: main characteristics
Leading themes: Human healthcare and SNP detection tools
Theme 1: Allele frequencies of SNPs in populations
Theme 2: Human diseases
Theme 3: Methods and Techniques
Sub-theme 1: Biochemistry and microtechnologies
Sub-theme 2: Instrumentation and robotics
Theme 4:
Molecular biology results
Table 4: Distribution of publications and patents among the different themes
Conclusions
Methodology
References