Sir John Sulston, who helped unlock the secrets of the human genome, is undoubtedly a worthy winner of this year's Nobel prize for medicine. The Cambridge professor is best remembered for being the face of the team that published the first working draft of the human genome two years ago. Despite his scientific success Sir John's biggest contribution to humankind may not have yet arrived. It was his insistence that the information from the human genome should be freely available to everyone that raised eyebrows - especially on the other side of the Atlantic, where the ownership of ideas, software code and genes was seen as a pre-requisite for a booming "knowledge economy".

Since then the internet bubble has burst, biotechnology companies have failed to produce drugs from genetic intellectual property, and poor nations have made a strong case that patents offer more pitfalls than promise. Sir John's criticism of patents - that they were only one means for promoting discovery and could stifle invention - appears more relevant now than ever. Only last month, the government received a report from a commission convened by the development secretary, Clare Short, which questioned the wisdom of poor nations adopting the patent protection regulations that the rich countries use.

Big pharmaceutical companies are still battling to stop developing countries from importing cheap generic drugs for populations ravaged by infectious scourges. It is unjustifiable to protect excess profits at the expense of people's lives and worse still that global trade rules uphold this behaviour. Companies are springing up whose assets are patents whose exploitation poses big questions. In owning rice strains or copyrighting treatments used for centuries, big business has furthered its own aims over the globe's citizens. Sir John, whose voice will carry further thanks to the Nobel prize, still needs to speak up.