The Wall Street Journal - May 1,1986
Marilyn Chase

In a statement on rival patents filed by the U.S. group and France's Pasteur Institute, the agency granted "senior party" status to the French laboratory because its patent claim was filed several months ahead of one made by Robert C. Gallo at the National Institutes of Health.

At stake are both scientific recognition and 5% annual royalties on nearly $40 million in annual sales of the antibody test kits that are being used by blood banks and hospitals to screen blood for the AIDS virus. As previously reported, the French filed a lawsuit last year charging the Americans with misappropriating their research.

The Pasteur Institute's director, Raymond Dedonder, said the patent office's decision isn't a final ruling and litigation could drag on for two years unless the parties settle out of court.

Charles Lipsey, patent attorney for the Pasteur Institute, characterized the decision as "the opening gun," but he added, "You have to get in the horse race to win." He said the action shifts the burden of proof to the U.S. group.

Neither Dr. Gallo nor his attorneys could be reached for comment. Dr. Gallo has consistently maintained that his claim of patent priority rested on his creation of a cell culture for growing the virus in quantity -- without which he said test kits couldn't have been developed. However, Mr. Lipsey contended that the only question remaining is "who was the first inventor of the basic antibody detection method. It doesn't involve (Dr. Gallo's) continuous cell-lines at all."

Pending a final decision, the patent office decision is good news for the Pasteur Institute's U.S. joint-venture partner, Seattle-based Genetic Systems Corp. Officials at the French laboratory said the decision protects Genetic Systems against patent-infringement suits that might arise out of its sale in the U.S. of the Pasteur Institute's virus tests.

Separately, an international committee of scientists has proposed that the AIDS virus be renamed HIV , or human immunodeficiency virus. The change is being proposed as a successor to a string of names adopted by warring factions of French and U.S. scientists.

Among those who signed the committee's letter announcing the name change was Luc Montagnier, the Pasteur Institute doctor who coined the term LAV, or lymphadenopathy virus, for the swollen glands that mark the syndrome. Jay A. Levy, a San Francisco doctor who authored ARV, or AIDS-related virus, also signed.

Conspicuously absent was Dr. Gallo, who named the virus HTLV-III, or human t-lymphotropic virus, for the microbe's habit of attacking t-cells, guardians of the body's immunity, and his close associate Myron E. Essex of the Harvard School of Public Health.
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