Patentability proteins/polypeptides

Bajpai P.K. and Graves G.A. Jr. 1980. Porous Ceramic Carriers for Controlled Release of Proteins, Polypeptide Hormones and other Substances within Human and/or Mammalian Species. US. Patent No. 4218255. 

Woods V.L. Jr Methods for the high-resolution identification of solvent-accessible ami,kde hydrogens in polypeptides or proteins and for the characterization of the fine structure of protein binding sites. U.S. Patent 6 291 189, 2001. 

In their original publication about SELEX, Tuerk and Gold (1990) already speculated that a similar approach could be adapted to protein selection. They referred to experiments describing the isolation of particular mRNAs from a pool of variants by immunoprecipitation of the nascent polypeptides present in the mRNA-ribosome-polypeptide complexes (Korman et al., 1982 Kraus and Rosenberg, 1982). In fact, soon after the publication of SELEX (Tuerk and Gold, 1990) a patent application was filed (Kawasaki, 1991), proposing a similar approach to enrich peptides from libraries. 

It is currently unclear whether, based on the current state of the art, a patent following the above-mentioned example could be extended to recombinant derivatives of the native protein. One might argue that, once the native protein is known and accessible, it needs no inventiveness to sequence the amino acids for parts of this protein, synthesize the corresponding DNAs, use these as probes to identify and isolate the entire coding sequence of the protein, which is then inserted into a suitable expression system to produce the protein in any desired form and quantity. Experience, however, teaches that it still requires some non-obvious steps and usually more than a limited degree of experimentation (often even a stroke of luck) to get there and to achieve the desired utility with recombinant polypeptides. For a vaccine it may be necessary to find and express the important epitopes in an appropriate (still unknown) way and to develop adequate purification and further processing protocols (with unpredictable technical... 

Dolence, Eric K. Hu, Chen-Ze Tsang, Ray Sanders, Clifton G. Osaki, Shigemasa. Electrophilic polyethylene oxides for the modification of polysaccharides, polypeptides (proteins) and polymer surfaces. (Surface Engineering Technologies, Division of Innerdyne, Inc., USA). US patent 55650234 1997. 

E. and Malone, L. (1999). Chimeric polypeptides allowing expression of plant-noxious proteins. New Zealand Patent PCT/NZ99/00110. 

Steber, W. D., Cady, S. M., Johnson, D. F., and Rice, T., 1993, Implant compositions containing a biologically active protein, peptide or polypeptide, European Patent AppHcation 523,330A1 (American Cyanamid Co., assignee). 

---