International HapMap consortium widens d...( lude other researchers from being able ...)

lude other researchers from being able to freely use the HapMap data. To prevent this from happening, the HapMap consortium required users to sign, using a simple mouse click from their computers, a free, non-exclusive, non-royalty-bearing licensing agreement to obtain access to certain types of data the project had collected on individuals' DNA sequences, specifically the genotypes. Under terms of that license, users agreed not to prevent others from using the individual genotype data and to share data only with those who had also agreed to this condition.

"The licensing agreement was quite non-restrictive and enabled most researchers to use HapMap data as they wished. However, there was an unavoidable consequence of the license: it did prevent HapMap data from being incorporated into other public genomic databases," said NHGRI Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. "We are pleased that researchers around the globe will now have swift and easy access to all HapMap data, free of any restrictions."

Several recent developments prompted the consortium's decision to drop the licensing requirement. First, consortium researchers already have publicly released data on about one million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the individual DNA samples that have been genotyped for the HapMap project. Second, Perlegen Sciences, Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., has publicly released genotype data on about 1.6 million SNPs. Third, new methods have been developed to analyze the data and are being used to determine the genome-wide patterns of genetic variation in the HapMap data. These advances led the consortium to conclude that the patterns of human genetic variation can readily be determined clearly enough from the primary genotype data to constitute prior art. Thus, in the view of the consortium, derivation of haplotypes and "haplotype tag SNPs" from HapMap data should be considered obvious and thus not patentable. Therefore, the original reasons for impo
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Contact: Geoff Spencer
spencerg@mail.nih.gov
301-402-0911
NIH/National Human Genome Research Institute
10-Dec-2004

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