Patents on ice

The article focuses on regulating bioprospecting activities in Antarctica. A patent and trademark office has yet to open its doors on McMurdo Sound or at Prydz Bay. But the microbes and fish that live in Antarctica and its environs have already become the subject of patent claims. The Spanish patent office granted a patent in 2002 for wound healing and other treatments with a glycoprotein drawn from the bacterium Pseudoalteromonas antarctica. Also that year Germany handed out a patent for a skin treatment using an extract from the green alga Prasiola crispa ssp.antarctica. And an application now before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office covers a process for producing antifreeze peptides discovered in Antarctic bacteria. In all, it is estimated that more than 40 patents have been granted worldwide that rely on Antarctic flora and fauna, and the U.S. patent office has received in excess of 90 filings. These numbers are not large--and no commercial enterprise is engaged in industrial harvesting of the continent's biota. But drug companies bring in tens of billions of dollars every year from natural compounds or synthetic knockoffs inspired by them. Interest in developing pharmaceuticals from Antarctica's novel life-forms, extremophiles--which withstand cold, aridity and salinity--will continue to grow. Moreover, it is already a problem to figure out who is doing the collecting and for what purpose. Bioprospecting often involves consortia composed of public and private entities. Delineating where scientific research ends and commercial activity begins becomes a difficult task, notes a report from the U.N. University Institute of Advanced Studies entitled "The International Regime for Bioprospecting: Existing Policies and Emerging Issues for Antarctica."