Appropriately quoted for a week of record snowfall in the US Capitol, IP Watch reports that a Health and Human Services Advisory Committee has released a report which shows a significant concern about accessing research tools – genes in this case – for health-related tests.
An related extension of this concern is the access of research tools to test their potential environmental impact – for example the environmental risks of patented variations of nanomaterials. Pursuant to the US Federal Circuit's narrow interpretation of the experimental use exemption in Madey v. Duke, institutions would be hard pressed to access these research tools for basic public-health research.