We've certainly learned a lot about stem cell technology recently. Late this summer, my friend George, a prominent stem cell researcher, could hardly get any work done he was so busy explaining stem cell lineages-hepatocytes, myocytes, osteoblasts-to the eager journalists and TV news crews camped in his lab.

It's still too early to tell, but we all can probably learn an important lesson about patents from the stem cell debate as well. In case you missed it, just as President George W. Bush decided to let federally funded researchers study those human embryonic stem cell lines already in existence, the public learned that a little-known private firm-Menlo Park, CA-based Geron-held a proprietary lock on them so tight that federal funding might be nearly moot. The situation was so dire a National Institutes of Health team scurried off to "negotiate" (read beg) for access to the sought-after stem cell lines.