Ann my dear, That quote was from the earliest days of the rush following the initial completion of the Genome Project.
At that time everyone was scrambling to find a way to leverage their new found information into a revenue source.
Some were trying to patent SNP's, others were selling subscription access to their databases, others were providing SNP tracking equipment to biotech start up companies.
Today the furor has died down and the industry has settled into a more stable state.
The databases, including ALL SNP maps, are public domain.
Companies such as Affymetrix provide SNP ID kits to companies to allow them to discover what combination of SNPs is specific to each individual tested. If you read the latest PR regarding the statin marker, you will see that DNAG uses a 500K Assay chip from Affymetrix to perform their testing.
All the SNPs that DNAG monitor for their testing purposes are identified using third party test sets from other vendors. They have no other way of finding them. So you see, if the SNP is not known by the test chip supplier, then DNAG can't test for it. Having an exclusive set of SNPs that no one else was aware of would stop them in their tracks. They would have no way to detect them.
So while the newsletter from the past is interesting reading it is not, and has never really been, relevant.
regards,
frog