Patent Law As an Incentive to Innovate Not Donate: The Role of the U.S. Patent System in Regulating Ownership of Human Tissue‪.‬

I. INTRODUCTION As researchers work to understand human disease and develop novel therapies, tissue samples and other biological materials from patients have become an invaluable resource. (1) Scientists study diseased tissue because understanding what is wrong at the molecular level is one of the best ways to figure out how to make it right. (2) Historically, ownership of human tissues used in research has been ill-defined. (3) With the increase in demand and value of these tissues has come an increase in disputes between researchers and patients, who are at times, the unknowing source of the tissue. (4) Because biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies rely on strong patent protection to justify significant investments in new treatments, the manner in which these disputes are resolved is of great import. (5) This Note will focus on the property rights of tissue donors in inventions subsequently derived from their tissues and analyze the approach of claiming the tissue donor as a joint-inventor for the purpose of obtaining a patent.