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~e» November 3, 1986

JOSHUA LEDERBERG

PRESIDENT

Dr. Gary Ellis

Congress of the United States
Office of Technology Assessment
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Dr. Ellis:

I appreciated the opportunity to serve with the panel on
new developments in biotechnology on October 30th.

On the issue options following page 27 there is one other
alternative that might be helpful in reconciling many divergent
concerns. I am quite fearful of the murkiness of a concept of
title that would flow to the progeny of cells and make it
necessary to have an audit trail of certificates of ownership
to legitimize continued experimentation on derivative cell
lines.

So an option for further consideration is that any cell
line be presumed to be in the public domain unless it had been
formally registered at the time the tissue was extracted or
was placed into culture. That presumption would bar anyone
else from claiming property rights on the cell line. The patent
and similar systems could stillapply for further inventions made
in developing applications of that material. While this would
not directly compensate the donor, it would relieve any sense
of invidious exploitation that someone else has taken over that
original property right.

It may or may not prove to be necessary to recommend specific
legislation toward this end. If consent forms were encouraged to
include a phrase that tissues taken for research purposes would
be presumed to be in the public domain that might be enough to
set a common standard of behavior.

The doctrine suggested is hardly a revolutionary one: it is
the same that underlies our patent system, that an act of regis-
Dr. Gary Ellis
November 3, 1986

~2-

tration is necessary to secure orderly protection of intellec-
tual property. The act of donating a tissue specimen would be
akin to that of publication, i-e. dedication for common use.

Yours sincerely,

  
 

shua Lederberg

be: W.H. Griesar