The Nation - News from May 1, 1986

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has agreed to decide whether the federal government’s patent for the AIDS blood test should be revoked in favor of a French application. The issue is whether the test was invented first by American scientists, or by French scientists at the Pasteur Institute in Paris who have also applied for a patent. The test, used in blood banks, determines whether a blood donor has been exposed in the past to the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome.