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HKU joins race for Sars code patent

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A patent on the University of Hong Kong's genetic sequencing of the Sars virus would be an important step in establishing the city's reputation as a knowledge-based society, patent experts said.

The university has filed an application to patent the virus sequence it discovered when its researchers first identified the Sars virus as a coronavirus. But it will have to compete with researchers from Canada, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and pharmaceutical companies.

The holders of the patent would have exclusive rights to the use of the data and other researchers would have to apply for a licence from them to use the information.

The British Columbia Cancer Agency in Canada, whose Genome Sciences Centre first identified the genetic code for the virus, has also confirmed it filed a provisional patent application in the US.

A spokesman for HKU's technology transfer and commercial arm, Versitech Limited, said applicants might have applied to patent a different part of the genetic sequence, not necessarily the same as the one identified by the university.

'A patent, essentially, is a protection for further R&D [research and development] on the subject matter,' deputy managing director Hailson Yu Tze-shan said.

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