Are Expressed Sequence Tags Patentable under the European Patent Convention? a Practitioner's View

The Human Genome Project (HGP) has provided a large amount of sequence information about the human genome. One type of sequence information obtained relates to expressed sequence tags (ESTs), i.e. partial DNA sequences of expressed genes. These ESTs are usually between 300 and 500 nucleotides in length. In many cases the sequence is unique to a degree that allows the identification of the corresponding gene. The EST sequence in most cases does not provide definitive information about the biological function of the corresponding entire gene. The patentability of ESTs has become an important major object of discussion over the last years in patent literature. The ongoing discussion lead in the US to the current practice of the USPTO to acknowledge, in principle, the patentability of ESTs. The first EST patent in the US has issued.