When Köhler and Milstein, working at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, first discovered a method for making monoclonal antibodies back in 1974 (ie 25 years ago now), they did not for various reasons patent their discovery. Instead they made their discovery public in the journal Nature in 1975 and also freely gave away the cell lines and details of the reagents and methods as well as collaborated with many workers in different countries, and thus succeeded in introducing this technology world wide. During my years as a PhD student in César Milstein's laboratory 1978 to 1981 I witnessed some of the controversy surrounding this course of action. As a result many academic scientists in this field of immunology, ie therapeutic applications of monoclonal and recombinant antibodies, have over the last 25 years sought to patent their work. I am one of these! However I sometimes wonder if this is indeed the right course of action. Patents are supposed to protect the inventor from having their ideas unfairly copied and exploited by others for commercial gain. It seems to me that patents can also often prevent good ideas from being put into practice because of conflicts between different inventions and inventors. My opinion is that many potentially useful therapies have been delayed or even abandoned because of licensing difficulties over the technologies. Often scientists (particularly those working in industry) waste valuable time trying to devise new methods and technologies for the sole purpose of avoiding paying license fees rather than pushing therapies forward in the clinic. Also legal differences between patent law in various countries often seems to result in unfair advantages or disadvantages depending on in which country a scientist does their work.
I now look on patents as a 'necessary evil'. If I don't patent my own inventions first then maybe someone else will and they will then later prevent me or my colleagues from producing an improved product possibly a therapeutic. Hopefully by filing patents and licensing through the University some control can be retained. This might allow license fees to be kept to reasonable and tolerable levels and also some income might return to the University to fund future research, both at a basic and applied level. There might even be enough money left over to supplement my academic salary and allow me to indulge my other passion for mountaineering :-) !
More recently there has been an attempt by some in the University to impose a more rigid and centrally controlled IP policy on staff at Cambridge University. Whilst not opposing a principle of technology transfer and revenue sharing I do oppose a policy of rigid control and think it will work against the kind of technology transfer activities that I have experience of. You can read up on this in more detail on another web site of mine devoted to a critical appraisal of the University of Cambridge IPR policy proposals.
Cobbold,S.P., Clark,M.R., Benjamin,R.J. & Waldmann,H. Priority date 2/4/86 Application 8608068 (U.K.) Monoclonal antibodies and their use.
Clark,M.R., & Waldmann,H. Priority date 5/11/86 Application 8626412 (U.K.) Antibodies.
Gilliland,L.K., Clark,M.R. & Waldmann,H. Priority date 5/11/86 Application 8626413 (U.K.) Antibodies.
Waldmann,H., Clark,M.R., Winter,G.P. & Riechmann,L. Priority date 12/2/88 Application 8803228 (U.K.) Priority date 25/2/88 Application 8804464 (U.K.) Improvements in or relating to antibodies.
Gorman,S.D., Clark,M.R., Cobbold,S.P., & Waldmann,H. Priority date 17/9/90 Application 90202823.1 (U.K.) Altered antibodies and their preparation.
Clark,M.R. Priority date 12/3/91 Application 9105245.6 (U.K.) Binding molecules.
Routledge,E.D., Bolt,S., Clark,M.R., Gorman,S.D., & Waldmann,H. Priority date 24/3/92 Application 9206422.9 (U.K.) Improved humanised CD3 antibodies.
Clark,M.R. Priority date 8/93 Binding molecules.
Armour,K., Williamson,L., & Clark,M.R. Priority date 8/5/98 Application 9809951.8 (U.K.) Binding molecules.
Atherton, A., Armour, K., & Clark, M.R. Priority date 28/10/99 Application 9925490.6 (U.K.) Binding Molecules and Treatment and Screening Methods
Laukanen, M-L., Clark, M.R. et al Priority date 29/04/02 Application 20020807 (Finland) Novel humanized anti-vap-1 monoclonal antibody
Armour, K., & Clark, M.R. Priority date 17/10/03 Application 0324368.0 (U.K.) Polypeptides including modified constant regions.
Mike Clark