While this view has become widely accepted, the court's concern that giving patients property rights to their tissues might hinder research is, in retrospect, somewhat ironic. Although the research community theoretically endorses the sharing of research, in reality sharing is commonly compromised by the aggressive pursuit and defense of patents and by the use of licensing fees that hinder collaboration and development (4-5). The court's decision in Moore has certainly facilitated the commercialization of tissues by researchers and academic institutions, but in the absence of any requirements for the research community to share its products and findings, it is not clear that this line of reasoning has prevented the problems that the court was hoping to avoid. Nevertheless, given the strong legal precedents in this area, it is doubtful that this patient could successfully claim a property right over the cells obtained from his pleural catheter.
