Tokyo

A Japanese genomics company, funded jointly by government and industry, has filed patent applications for more than 6,000 full-length human complementary DNA (cDNA) clones from various tissues, including the ovary, placenta and brain.

If it is successful, the Helix Research Institute plans to seek similar patents in the United States and Europe. But industry analysts say the Japanese Patent Office may be reluctant to award patents, pointing out that, although 700 of the clones are thought to correspond with genes that express membrane and secretory proteins, this alone would not satisfy the criteria of a patented invention. The functions of the remaining cDNA clones have not been specified.

The daily newspaper Yomiuri Shinbun reported last week that Helix—a joint venture between the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and ten private companies—applied for the patents in July. Helix hopes to produce, and possibly patent, a further 20,000 full-length human cDNA clones over the next two years, in collaboration with other companies and research institutes, possibly through a consortium.

Helix's move reflects its concern over growing competition from US biotechnology ventures, such as Incyte, which are accelerating their efforts to clone full-length human cDNAs.

In a bid to preserve open access to this information, the US National Institutes of Health is creating a public repository for full-length human cDNAs to provide the research community with genetic sequences and clones (see Nature 401, 418; 1999).

Japan's cDNA project, which is led by Tokyo University, is aiming to sequence 30,000 cDNA clones—more than 20 per cent of expressed human genes—by 2001.

But Japan is falling behind the rest of the world in patenting genes, according to Hitoshi Watanabe, an executive directorof Helix. A sense of urgency among researchers and industry has led to the government's decision to step up support for biotechnology (see Nature 400, 389; 1999).

”It is important to secure patents [on human genes] for future development of new pharmaceutical products as well as biomedical research,” says Watanabe.

Watanabe declines to elaborate on the filed patents, other than saying that the cDNAs were divided into several groups. But sources close to the company confirm that three patents were filed, one of which is for a set of 200 full-length cDNA clones, corresponding to genes that express membrane and secretory proteins.

The second patent is for a set of 850 full-length cDNA clones, 500 of which are also believed to express membrane and secretory proteins. The third is for the remaining 5,000 or so full-length cDNAs, although their functions are not known.

”We wouldn't have filed the patents if we thought there was no chance of them being approved,” says Watanabe. But he admits he does not know how the applications will fare, as this is the first attempt to patent full-length human cDNAs in Japan.