Nikhil V Dhurandhar and Richard L Atkinson, two researchers behind much of the research on Ad-36 and obesity, filed for a patent on using AD-36 antibody presence as a predictor of obesity. The initial filing was on Sep 9, 2005, after all the research I can find by those two was published, so it does not appear to constitute a conflict of interest.

(Edit: Actually they published more after that, but the conclusion was well proven before the filing and they seem to have moved on to details and mechanisms)