Recent innovative and advanced developments in the diagnosis and treatment of human diseases as well as enhanced in-depth understanding of virus molecular biology have opened novel avenues with respect to the patent landscape. Included are viruses utilized in the development of anticancer agents, agents that are employed against the spread of infectious viral diseases, RNA silencing agents and virus-derived expression vectors that can be used for over-expression of therapeutic proteins or as gene therapy vehicles. The current review describes several recent patents pertaining to virus sequences and their medical and biotechnological applications.