Subject: Americans Set Back In Claim for Patent On Test for AIDS
Date: Published: 5/1/86 73 lines
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

   Americans Set Back
   In Claim for Patent
   On Test for AIDS
    ---
   U. S. Agency Decides Filing
   By French Laboratory
   Has 'Senior Party' Status
    ---
   By Marilyn Chase
   Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

   A decision by the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office appears
to set back a claim by the National Institutes of Health
covering test kits for acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
   In a statement on rival patents filed by the U. S. group
and France's Pasteur Institute, the agency granted "senior
party" status to the French laboratory because its patent
claim was filed several months ahead of one made by Robert C. 
Gallo at the National Institutes of Health.
   At stake are both scientific recognition and 5% annual
royalties on nearly $40 million in annual sales of the
antibody test kits that are being used by blood banks and
hospitals to screen blood for the AIDS virus.  As previously
reported, the French filed a lawsuit last year charging the
Americans with misappropriating their research.
   The Pasteur Institute's director, Raymond Dedonder, said
the patent office's decision isn't a final ruling and
litigation could drag on for two years unless the parties
settle out of court.
   Charles Lipsey, patent attorney for the Pasteur Institute,
characterized the decision as "the opening gun," but he
added, "You have to get in the horse race to win."  He said
the action shifts the burden of proof to the U. S. group.
   Neither Dr. Gallo nor his attorneys could be reached for
comment.  Dr. Gallo has consistently maintained that his claim
of patent priority rested on his creation of a cell culture
for growing the virus in quantity -- without which he said
test kits couldn't have been developed.  However, Mr. Lipsey
contended that the only question remaining is "who was the
first inventor of the basic antibody detection method.  It
doesn't involve (Dr. Gallo's) continuous cell-lines at all."
   Pending a final decision, the patent office decision is
good news for the Pasteur Institute's U. S. joint-venture
partner, Seattle-based Genetic Systems Corp. Officials at the
French laboratory said the decision protects Genetic Systems
against patent-infringement suits that might arise out of its
sale in the U. S. of the Pasteur Institute's virus tests.
   Separately, an international committee of scientists has
proposed that the AIDS virus be renamed HIV, or human
immunodeficiency virus.  The change is being proposed as a
successor to a string of names adopted by warring factions of
French and U. S. scientists.
   Among those who signed the committee's letter announcing
the name change was Luc Montagnier, the Pasteur Institute
doctor who coined the term LAV, or lymphadenopathy virus, for
the swollen glands that mark the syndrome.  Jay A. Levy, a San
Francisco doctor who authored ARV, or AIDS-related virus,
also signed.
   Conspicuously absent was Dr. Gallo, who named the virus
HTLV-III, or human t-lymphotropic virus, for the microbe's
habit of attacking t-cells, guardians of the body's immunity,
and his close associate Myron E. Essex of the Harvard School
of Public Health.

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