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Abstract
Merck has been vocal over the principle of not patenting human DNA sequences that could be considered as research tools for developing small molecule pharmaceuticals. The Company has been particularly noted for its contribution to the expressed sequence tag (EST) approach to human gene discovery and, most recently, has been active in support of industrial scale knock-out mouse generation. However, it is quite clear from the patents described here that Merck considers the patenting of gene sequences to be important, if not crucial, in various disease areas, in particular antivirals and receptor biology.