Flu chip: patently mine (and yours)

A story on a new "flu chip" has been making the rounds, so I thought I'd comment on it. It is the product of work done at the University of Colorado (aka CU-Boulder). The "chip" is actually a microarray of spots composed of DNA sequences corresponding to particular sequences characteristic of various influenza A subtypes. By looking to see which of these spots on the array are grabbed on to by RNA from the viral specimen, the virus can be subtyped with "90% accuracy" (exactly what this means in terms of sensitivity and specificity is not discussed in the press releases I have to work with at this point). The main advantage of this method is not accuracy but speed. Reportedly the subtyping can be done in 11 hours instead of four days, with further speed iimprovements to come.

But here's the part of the press release that caught my attention:

The Flu Chip is expected to be in wide use in laboratories within a year, said [Professor Kathy] Rowlen, who has led the two-year CU-Boulder research effort.

Rowlen, who is working on the Flu Chip development with CU-Boulder chemistry Professor Robert Kuchta and a team of postdoctoral researchers and students, said they are conferring with CU's Technology Transfer Office and plan to make the Flu Chip genetic sequences freely available to interested researchers.

[snip]

"This was the first time a version of the Flu Chip was tested outside of our lab, and it exceeded our expectations," she said. The technology was developed with a $2 million, five-year grant to CU from the National Institute of Infectious Diseases. (TerraDaily)

Whoa. Wait a minute. They are "conferring with CU's Technology Transfer Office and plan to make the Flu Chip genetic sequences freely available to interested researchers"? Nothing to confer about. I'm a taxpayer. I paid for this work. It's public. Nor should CU get a patent on it. Nobody in the trechnology transfer office or administration did a lick of work on it. The scientists did. And I daresay they would have done it regardless of patenting.

Put it in the public domain, CU.