Generate text that refutes this claim: Patenting enables knowledge sharing  Patents are typically granted for twenty years only. After this period the monopoly ends. All companies ask is that for a limited time they are able to benefit from their investments, and that in that period if another company wishes to pursue a project in their area then they should have to give their permission for the use of the patent. Patenting does not mean withholding information in secrecy.  On the contrary, patents actively encourage openness in science, because if you were not able to disclose your findings without fear of exploitation, then you would keep your findings secret. This would be to the detriment of medical advancement.  For example the Human Genome Sciences’ patented their discovery of the CCR5 receptor gene, which was then discovered by other scientists at the National Institutes of Health, that the small number of people missing the receptor appear to be immune to HIV 1. This could be done because Human Genome Sciences has a policy that "we do not use our patents to prevent anyone in academics or the nonprofit world from using these materials for whatever they want, so long as it is not commercial.2"  Patenting makes sure that the information is registered and shared. The other option, whereby companies do not patent the information and keep it as a “trade secret”, hurts everybody much more and slows down the rate of scientific progress.  1. Dutfield G., DNA patenting: implications for public health research, WHO  2. Chartrand, Sabra, "Human Gene Patented as Potential Fighter Against AIDS" The New York Times, 6 March 2000,
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In the twenty years of a patent’s duration, any prospective research is carried out in fear of recriminations and law-suits from the patent-holder. Laboratories offering patented genetic tests for research studies have been asked to “cease and desist” unless they refer materials to or get a license from the patent holder 1. Where one company has the right of exploitation, they possess a monopoly and inevitably will be able to charge what they like. It is only after countries threatened or actually invoked provisions of the WTO Treaty, for example, that companies offered to decrease the price of their Aids medicines for African countries 2. Those provisions would have permitted the governments to grant compulsory licenses.Further on, gene-patent holders can often control the useof ‘their’ gene; if they have the claim for the test, they can prevent a doctor from testing a patient’s blood for a specific genetic mutation and can stop anyone from doing research to improve a genetic test or to develop a gene therapy based on that gene 3.So any further research is in the mercy of the patent owner. Even if information is public, if it is not possible to use it and build upon it without permission. It is therefore possible for the patent holder simply to horde patents and prevents any research using that patent to the detriment of science, medicine and the patients who could be benefiting.  1. Cook-Deegan R., Gene patents, The Hastings Center,  , accessed 07/20/2011  2. BBC News, “Brazil to break AIDS drug patent”,  , accessed 15/9/2011.  3. CRS Report for Congress, Gene Patents: A Brief Overview of Intellectual Property Issues, 2006,  , accessed 07/21/2011