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PTO's New DNA Guidelines
Robert Wilde writes "The National Law Journal has published an analysis of the PTO's new proposed DNA guidelines. The PTO will accept written comments until March 22. " I think this is one of the most important issues of the upcoming years - can company's patent genes that exist in all of us? What work should be done in genetics? What do you folks think?
Thanks to my parents I have an 'inherited' immunity to two common viruses. Although the researchers only say "it's because of your Levis" -Geek medico sense of humour- I made a submission to the European Commission on this very subject. I felt so strongly that I should have sole rights to my genes and therefore be free to to give them away freely as in GPL (sort of) much the same way we give blood here in the UK. I have added a condition to all the blood taken by researchers that it is given only on the condition that it is also freely available to anyone who requests it and that these conditions must be accepted by all third parties. I note with interest that the Slazenger Institute at Cambridge UK has published the first batch of sequenced DNA (Nr. 23) on the Net so everyone can have it. Are US researchers doing the same??
Like most of the patenting laws, the idea of patenting was intended to encourage research and development, and open transfer of information and like all the other areas gene patenting is being seriously abused. The traditionalist view is that the profit from patenting the gene documenting and discovery encourages research companies to invest their funds into this ...but this isn't happening. Especially where profit oriented company research is concerned - what is identified is still kept quiet until it is considered that the gain from publication is greater than the negative of distributing information to the competition.
:(
If a company doesn't consider an area to be likely to produce "sufficient" profit, they won't follow that line of research. I've talked to and heard tales from researchers working for private corps commenting on how they aren't free to follow their own research unless they can show the likelihood of "significant" profit. These are the types of places that are patenting the isolation of new genes without going further. Sort of like gene squatting
Being an open source advocate I found it pretty stomach turning when I was doing my post-grad in genetics because it is relatively closed mouthed and I was used to the idea of distributing information "for the greater good". Gene patenting laws are and will be abused by large corporations with their own self interest as the primary goal.
I'm now changing over to computing because I like the atmosphere more... (I was especially put off by companies such as Monsanto who have an *appalling* track record).
I'd hope that, while known for their apathy in non-tech areas, that the techies who have seen the effects of these sorts of laws on computing act on this.
It would be a loss to social progress if the basic gene maps were patented, because this would prevent the many various activities that could be carried out with those maps. It is more to the benefit of society, and eventually to science and industry, that the basic gene maps are open source.
Based on this, a wealth of opportunities is possible. Patenting processes to mine and manipulate gene maps to solve specific problems, and the processes to deliver and apply gene therapies. There are innumerable commercial opportunities that would be stifled by keeping the gene maps closed source.
You must remember, also, that it is going to take some time to data mine and otherwise process and experiment with gene therapies. The gene maps, as they stand now, are built from a limited subset of humans, and are a very complex interweave of many variables. Finding out which are relavent for various purposes, and combinations thereof, is the next step. The argument may then be, that in this next step, that should also be open source.
Perhaps it is wise to draw the analogy with chemicals, in that the discovery of basic chemicals and constituent parts of electromechanical systems was open source.
In the end, who will benefit from the closed source model ? The Wellcome Trust is already in the process of mapping the pool, and the argument could be that this will be accelerated by the free market (US startups) if genes could be patented.
I would suggest the following evidence for why genes should not be patented: 1) the basic premise that genes are a natural discovery, similar to that of chemistry, biology, etc; and that if they were "invented", then the case may be different; 2) the weaker premise that for economic and technological progress, the patenting of the gene pool will cause far further damage than it not being patented.
matthew.gream@pobox.com
An argument for genetic patents (or patents in general) that I see again and again are to the tune of "without patents, we will not have the research".
To which I say "Of course we will have the research, just at a different pace. The fact that the human genome project exists is testiment to the will of (some) people to get this research done despite the prospect of future monopoly profits".
Please convince me otherwise.
Also, as a country where we can theoriticly change the law through taking action in the political process, we could impose such rules as lowering patent protection to 3 years.
Could not that be beneficial?
I guess my point is that the benefits of patents are a function of deltas in multi-variable functions, and that any truely black and white statement really isn't going to be correct (although it may be politicly efficacious).
I've seen good arguments for patent protections of some kind, but I'm still not convinced that we shouldn't be doing everything we can to limit the current system. (This without regard to pragmatic and ethical issues with such things as software, business models, or genetic algorythms).
For what it is worth, the older I get, the less I find I know. I hope I don't come across as preachy- I really am searching for an argument to change my mind.
Pax -- Ob
I have to give this a hefty "bah". :)
You both picked archtypical arguments on the poles of the issue. Patents are useful to the extent which they speed "discovery" (or innovation, or whatever you want to label it).
I don't think anyone _should_ argue that innovation won't happen without patents. It certainly can be shown to have happened again and again in the past (It can also be shown how some technology was kept hidden through trade secret mechanisms which could have benefitted society more had it been released under patent). Its the rate of innovation that is at question (again, I'm using innovation, but discovery would work just as well).
IMHO, Patents have a valid use, but the extent to which they are applied is negatively correlated with the cost to society so they should be scrutinized and limited as much as possible.
Unfortunately that isn't happening. And as much as the middle ground is probably where the answer to this lies, I think it may be better to argue against patents, at least until they become more reasonable.
Ah well.... I do think the original posters point about the original intent of patent is a valid one.
Pax -- Ob
I'm not saying that they will not happen, I'm just saying that they will happen much, much more slowly.
:)
OK, in that case, what you are saying is valid. I may take umbrage at that much, much part, but that is only because I haven't seen data.
What our laws should do is foster advance as quickly as possible.
Ahh...but our laws don't do that. To guarentee the maximum rate of discovery, we should guarentee the monopoly for life! Maybe even extend patents in other ways. But your point about pragmatism is well taken.
I agree that a pragmatic solution is best. I would favor modifying the patent system to provide protection for 2 years. Enough to guarentee return on research, but enough to bring in competition quick enough so that the dissinfranchised can get the same quality of care as the rest of us.
Bear in mind that 96% of research (in the world) is done in less than 10 countries [1]. We are quickly getting into a social justice issue if there is a distrobutional conflict with dispersing technology to 3rd world nations (hint: there is).
I don't care how you "feel". Your not morally right if your not actually right.
Hmmm... I care how others feel because I think they have wisdom to share with me. However, Im not really concerned with morality. I'm concerned with what is best for humanity as a whole. You have failed to convince me that the good of protection outweighs the bad of protection (not that it matters).
What I really want to say is that there are times in economic analysis where we can say that something is true based on theories of rationality, competitive behavior, and a myriad assortment of other factors. With patents, we have a fundamental positive result pitted against a fundamental negative result, and we can't say what is best without studying data. I have looked hard and not found any (non-anectdotal) data.
In the absence of data or undisputed theory, opinionated people such as ourselves can discuss our thoughts, but can't be sure of our "correctness".
I guess I should apologise for not seeming sensitive to your human argument, but I really believe that policy should be the result of rational thought. *shrug* So to that I will strive.
[1] Bayoumi, Tarnim, Coc, Helpman "R&D spillovers in global growth" : 1995
Pax -- Ob
(or at least some of them).
Specificly, I am referring to an interesting story I heard on NPR this morning referring to a report on the British public health system.
To summarize, it said that even though the current flu epidemics were throwing into sharp relief the problems of the public system, that system would survive. What it would NOT handle would be the costs of using genetic processes that were currently being patented, and would presumably come into economic use in 10 to 20 years (these may be conservative numbers- I really don't know).
The interesting thing is to what extent liberal governments will be willing to bear the brunt of a foreign nations intellectual property.
You see various well known international violations of IP now, but even in those situations, it is hard to see how the governments are in direct conflict with supporting the IP. Once an incentive is in place to circumvent the international law, I would expect far more countries choosing to shun WTO involvement just to avoid the TRIPS agreement.
To throw out an incredibly ill thought out prediction= It is possible that the costs of supporting international IP will outweigh the gains of WTO membership sometime in the future- especially for developing nations, or nations which can utilize semi-protectionary measures such as regional free trade zones to mitigate the loss of truely international trade.
Just some random thoughts...
Pax -- Ob
I hope genes that are discovered and not created are NOT patented. If nature created them, then you have a prior use AND common 'knowledge' to the pre-existing systems.
If there is a process for synthesizing genes, fine patent it if there is something new about it.
No, this is most likely not about "synthesized genes" (is this really a used concept? Synthesized proteins makes sense to me, but synthesizing a gene seems like a strange concept.) but so called Expressed Sequence Tags (EST). These are short DNA sequences (in the range of 100-200 bases I believe) that are used to map the genome. They bind to positions on the genome that code for proteins (they are "expressed") and are simply a kind of marker. Notice also that an EST is a part of a gene, not a full gene.
EST are useful for detecting whether a gene is present and can therefore be used to piece together the big puzzle of DNA strings that the genome projects produce, but can also be used to detect a disease I presume (I don't fully understand why companies try to patent EST:s).
See this policy paper for an interesting view on the patent issue.
Lars
__
Reality or nothing.
I think a better analogy is with prospecting. A company can buy the rights to prospect an area and get first dibs on a gold ore within that area.
Some gene patenting seems reasonable to me, because they require a large investment in time, money and development in general, but there are certainly many cases that are downright trivial. The concern among many academic researchers is that the patent offices are giving away gold that rightfully belongs to humanity.
New species have, sort of, been in patent applications. I have heard of a case where a company tried to patent a compound found in a plant which would make a good ingredient for toothpaste. Indigenous people have chewed on these plants for generations... The patent was supposedly turned down. Anyone heard more of this story?
There is also a village in Italy where the locals have barely no heart problems. It turns out that they carry a mutated form of a protein that is very good at breaking down colesterol (sp?). This protein has been patented and is now developed to become a drug. It remains to be seen if the company is successful.
Lars
__
Reality or nothing.
I note with interest that the Slazenger Institute at Cambridge UK has published the first batch of sequenced DNA (Nr. 23) on the Net so everyone can have it. Are US researchers doing the same?
I presume you mean the Sanger Institute?
It was researchers from several institutes/universties, including US researchers involved in that feat. The foremost private initiative, Celera Genomics, have promised to donate humage genome data early this year. Many academics worry that they will not stand to their promise though. However, that is independent of the issue of patents.
Lars
__
Reality or nothing.
If I understand the difference between patents and trade secrets correctly, after a finite time, a patent passes to the public domain. Correct?
Furthermore, a patent does not prevent competitor research (refinement of the patented item or process), it only prevents the marketting of it and profitting from it.
Now, the patent term is what, 7 years?
In gene technology, with it's profound effects on humanity and biology everywhere, a 7 year proving-ground for a process is a Good Thing. If a single company does the testing, works out the kinks, and provides the benefit of the technology in a limited (by being a single source) way, while everyone else learns from their example/mistakes, then by the time the patent expires, the technology is more mature, and therefore safer.
It wasn't until the PC 'matured' that the clone market really took off. The standards were laid and defined first. We saw what tended to work, and what fell flat on it's face. Once 'this works' was established, everyone jumped in and found ways of doing it cheaply. If we took a similar path with genetics, then a single (probably huge) company will get a head start. Either because they can afford the up-front research, or because they buy out a small innovator (and their patent). A company such as this will be heavily scrutinized, and controlled by the government to a greater extent than a small, independent, Taiwanese gene-slicing clone maker. They will be held more accountable during the term of the patent, and the technology will be raised according to regulations, and not the profit driven free-market.
Of course, I could be totally off the mark, since Apple seems to have a stranglehold on it's products. Are they holding patents, or is more involved?
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Although it's OpenSource(tm), the human genome has a very long compile cycle. You can't just ./conceive && make. Would it be feasible to port the genome to Perl? I know it would run more slowly, but it should be sufficient for politicians and the like, and it would allow for true RAD (Rapid Adolescent Development). Humanity would also benefit from regular expressions and DBI (DNA-Based Intelligence).
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Genes are already, and will be, protected in different ways, without needing to allow the actual patenting of a gene in a manner similar to a copyright.
Copyrights on the gene sequence will be valid, because genes are programs, they are creative works, or at least, the ones we create will be. If someone makes a gene that bears too much resemblence to yours you could sue them, much the same as if they took any written work, changed a few lines, and remarketed it. Some basic sequences will be common in all work, but so are words and phrases in written works. It's the order of these macro units that will be copyrightable.
Not only this, but with the trend in software patents, it'll probably be possible to patent some methods. For instance, producing endorphins to hide pain is a natural body process and shouldn't be patentable. Ditto with the ways the body produces endorphins. But if you had a way to produce endorphins artificials, with modified genes, your specific method would be patentable. A happy medium preventing scientific discovery about the human system from being locked away, yet rewarding the discovery of specific methods of interacting with that system.
You then go on to assert that without patents we'd be eating gourmet cornbread, but things like medication to cure Alzheimer's would never be found.
I would like to point out that patents are a fairly recent legal invention, in the scope of human history, and much innovation was done without them.
Patents are a delicate balance. Given that patents do give companies some guarantee of exclusivity, they do speed up development. But, take this to extremes. With unending patents, or patents with a 100 year period even, development would slow to a trickle because almost all inventions are based on older works, and if those works were off limits, even by inependant discovery, needless workarounds, or long waits would be the only way of bringing out new inventions.
At either end you have slowed developments, either by secrecy, or over-protection. Somewhere in the middle is the best balance. I don't think we can stick one number to this. One year of protection in the software industry is a full product lifetime, but twenty years is barely a product cycle in the airplane industry, where 777s were in development for ten or more years, and are expected to sell for 25 or more to recoup development costs. Should we use 17 years, or any other number, and stifle research in industries on either end of this, or base patent terms on a ongoing study of the field, to maintain a proper balance.
I personally suspect 3-5 years would be adequate protection in the pharmecutical industry, especially if the term had a limit on the number of years a drug could be in production and protected. Like an eight year term, or public-availability +2, to allow for testing and development, but still get generic drugs to market to allow for affordable disease fighting.
Well, then you are certainly qualified to comment on it, now aren't you.
Why wouldn't he be? The issue is what should be patentable, not thoughts about what the article says. You're just using something unrelated to attack him with. Ditto with your later comment about gambling (Though I do agree that gambling is exploitation of the stupid.)
DNA is not encrypted.
Perhaps not, as in cyphered, but it is encoded, which is a form of encryption. The idea is solid though, that DNA is instructions for the cells that make up our bodies, but we don't have a clue of how it does that.
Hrm, someone hasn't been paying attention. In order for a patent to be a patent, it has to be public knowledge.
Sure, patents make the process public, but they don't make it available until the patent ends. And given the trend in copyrights, patent terms could end up getting longer.
It'd suck if the cure for Alzheimers (to use a common example) was based on a patent help by a bankrupt company, and unavailable because its creditors, upon hearing of potential money, held up the bankruptcy litigation for years. It could happen. It has happened before with lesser technologies.
Patents have a purpose, but they aren't universally applicable, or appropriate in the same form for all markets. Why is the same patent term that is used in the slowly-innovating auto industry also appropriate in the rapidly advancing drug industry? You could argue it should be longer or shorter, but you can't think both are similar enough that the same term is completely appropriate.
I have to think that the idea of patenting DNA is not necessarily the terrible idea that everyone makes it out to be. I agree that things like patenting the human genome is ludicrous, but we have to remember that most of us don't really understand how the Genetic field works. What we have to ask is how these changes will affect scientific research.
At first glance it may seem that any patents in the genetic field are bad for it, after all if one scientist can't build off what someone else has done, how can science move forward? But I don't believe that this is necessarily true, for instance would current genetic research get as much funding as it currently is no patents were granted at all? In my opinion it wouldn't. What's the point of "liberating" a scientific field if no one is paying for research?
Like many slashdot readers I don't really understand exactly how genetic patenting works. I'm pretty sure that as of now, there are almost no new genes being developed, only discoveries as to the effects of genes commonly found in nature. I've heard some of you say that patenting a "discovery" is against the idea of patents, but I don't think that definition holds to the Genetic industry anymore then it does to the pharmaceuticals industry. I mean, how can any new drug not be just a discovery of the effects of some certain compound on the human body.
I'm not saying that we should allow any kind of genetic patent, but at the same time I think that the idea of genetic patents is not completely without merit. A line needs to be drawn somewhere, and I like many of us not in the genetics field are not really qualified to say where that line should be drawn (or even where it would be possible to draw a line)
"Suble Mind control? why do html buttons say submit?",
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I must admit first of all that I didn't actually read the article.
Well, then you are certainly qualified to comment on it, now aren't you.
Anyways, my feelings are strong on this subject. Flat out, companies should NOT be able to patent our DNA. DNA is should be part of the public domain. God gave it to us as open-source, although no one has yet to reverse engineer the encryption.
DNA is not encrypted. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a genetic scientist, and I don't really understand exactly what it is that we are trying to patent. But I will agree that I don't think that companies should be allowed to patent genetic pattern that appears to be in a large number of humans already.
It is not something that we as a species can afford to allow to be locked away as Corporate Trade Secrets. Some day, the very existence of the species may depend upon this knowledge being as common and easily available as a Gideon Bible.
Hrm, someone hasn't been paying attention. In order for a patent to be a patent, it has to be public knowledge. The whole idea behind patents is to expand human knowledge by making it easier for a company to have a limited time monopoly on there discovery of invention, as opposed to trying to keep it trade secret.
Play a few hands of blackjack at www.GreatWorldCasino.com and let me know what you think of my Java Servlets!
Thank you for creating technology the sole purpose of witch is to cheat money from the stupid, and then having the audacity to claim the moral high ground.
"Suble Mind control? why do html buttons say submit?",
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
IIRC, patents do cover discoveries. Think about it though, if you couldn't patent discoveries how could anyone patent conventional drugs? They only consist of common chemicals, so there 'invention' is only the act of discovering there positive effect on the body (or there ability to get you high :P )
"Suble Mind control? why do html buttons say submit?",
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I don't think anyone _should_ argue that innovation won't happen without patents.
I'm not saying that they will not happen, I'm just saying that they will happen much, much more slowly. When it comes to biotech, the faster advances are made, the more human lives are saved. If we have to wait 100 year, or even 25 for a cure that would have come about that many more hundreds of thousands of people will have to suffer through Alzheimer's disease.
I think we need to be pragmatic about this. What our laws should do is foster advance as quickly as possible.
Certainly some research would be done in genetics, but anywhere near the current rate without patents. By slowing down the research system, you would literally be killing people. I don't care how you "feel". Your not morally right if your not actually right.
"Suble Mind control? why do html buttons say submit?",
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Let me ask you something.
Would you prefer it if pharmaceutical companies did not patent there discoveries, instead holding them as trade secret? If that were the case then the information would never become a part of human knowledge.
I don't think its to unreasonable to allow a company, if it finances its own research to claim genetic patents, however I do draw the line at patenting DNA witch is a majority of human beings. When a patent is filed it usually means that if it were not, that knowledge would simply not exist at all.
The genetic industry, much like the computer industry in past few decades is rapidly becoming a market driven system, meaning that most of the research and development in the field is going to be done by corporations rather universities. If a corporation cannot gain a competitive advantage by having spending the money to research, then it will not do research at all.
Rather then cause the genetic field to grow, it would do more to retard it. Imagine if no computer companies were allowed to gain patents. Do you honestly think that we would get any good new technology if we had to wait for it to come out of a university? We'd probably all still be using 5micron CPUs.
Under current law, a patent doesn't last forever, about 17 years (or 29 for a drug, I'm not sure what would apply here), I'd be willing to be that in a zero-intellectual property environment we probably wouldn't see the advance for at least that long
I think that its best for us to consider what will be the best course of action for the advancement of science, and the human race as opposed to knee-jerk reactions based on what we believe to be the 'moral' course of action.
"Suble Mind control? why do html buttons say submit?",
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Yes the situation you describe could happen, but let me propose another one
The patenting of genetic information is banned. Company X was about to start research on the DNA that does cause Alzheimer's. This research, if done, will result in a potential cure, however there projected costs for the project are $300 million dollars. Now, were they to do this research under your new proposed guidelines they wouldn't make any more money then the companies that didn't spend all that money, so they decide to scrap the idea, and decide to start researching new kinds of tastier corn.
Under the current situation, what you describe is possible, one company for about 17 years will be the only company that will be able to cure Alzheimer's disease. However, I believe this would be preferable to having no cure for Alzheimer's at all don't you?
You're not morally right if you not actually right.
"Suble Mind control? why do html buttons say submit?",
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Patenting is supposed to be for original inventions, correct? No prior art is supposed to exist, etc. Well, I've got a few million years of prior art going into this creation I call my body, so I'm not buying the idea of patenting any of it (save my irresistible charm ;) ). Now that it's apparently okay to patent discoveries instead of inventions, I'm claiming fire, how about you?
---sig---
So. I've done some basic genetics stuff, including just enough "lab" work to say I've messed around with (safe) e. coli to splice in a simple resistance gene (to a specific antibiotic). It looks like the issue here isn't patenting large segments of the genome, but small ones. Not a matter of patenting sequences that have effects (allele-level), but sequences that are used as tools to get at these larger, more complicated parts.
At a certain level, these are also "naturally occurring"; they probably *do* exist in some form in organisms that are heavily resistant to genetic damage (as tools to recover from it). However, they really are tools in the circumstances the patent office is seeing them under. I hesitate to think of the mess if a human gene is brought up for patent as a tool.
I think that this is a step in the right direction (I fit in, as do most here, I would guess, with the purists who don't like the idea of patenting genes much). I hope there is a long hard look taken at each proposed genetic patent, and that there is a relaxing of the rules for the exceptions mentioned at the end of the article.
I think the biggest problem (and this has been noted repeatedly with respect to software as well) is that common law and precedents are being applied to situations never dreamed of, or at least taken into account, when they were derived.
The patenting of genes (or the process thereof) is not such a great idea. We already live in a semi-luddite world where the potential social backlash of even genetically modified crop is severe. The patenting of genes or such a process will make the information available publicly - Patents are NOT trade secrets. This may lead to a black clinic market where parents wishing to give their children that slight edge go. We've all read Gibson - "The black clinics of Chiba finds other uses for such technology".
Once something has been invented, and proven to be done, it cannot be un-invanted - that is not that nature of inventions. Patenting of genes and processing thereof will spurn innovation, but will they really be controlled by this absurd notion of the Patent?
.my 2p
Washington DC, January 13 (AP)
Today, the USPTO announced new guidelines for the genetic qualifications of new application hirings. Under the new guidelines, DNA samples of all prospective USPTO-bureaucrat applicants will be submitted and examined to exclude all Neanderthals and proto-simians. Todd Dickinson, Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks, was quoted as saying: "Internal audits of personnel revealed a disturbing trend: too many employees are of subhuman intelligence. We hope these new guidelines will turn around our beleaguered agency."
I can dream, can't I?
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
This is an issue I feel strongly about. I think patents on genes are a much greater threat than those on software, by far. If I'd been in Seattle for the WTO protest, you could have seen me marching with my "No Gene Patents" sign.
Wether you believe in God or evolution, it seems obvious to me that patents should not be allowed for something which already exists. It's the ultimate "prior art". Build a gene from scratch, and maybe you'll have a case, but until then, I think it is clear that these patents should be opposed at all cost
They can patent my DNA when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.
But seriously, this measure isn't really enough. It's beyond me how you can patent DNA at all, but all this article means is that the PTO will not allow researchers to patent every single sequence they map in case it might coincidentally be important; they will have to prove that they can "do something" with it. I can understand patenting drugs or medical procedures BASED on these discoveries, but patenting the genes themselves is a lot like patenting algorithms; patenting the "laws of nature", which are discoveries, not inventions, and which confer unnatural monopolies that restrain the whole of human knowledge.
Biotech industries depend heavily on an unhealthy confluence of universities and corporate R&D, and this is just the most patently [sic] ridiculous extreme. The government has no cause sanctioning it. Progress [in the best 19th century sense] suffers from the relationship, and this cuts against the original purpose of patents.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
I think this is one of the most important issues of the upcoming years - can company's patent genes that exist in all of us?
Well, they won't be patening the gene itself, however the process by which it is created.
You can't patent a finger, but you can patent a process that will create fingers.
Much like IBM's patents on copper chips. They patented their process, which at the time, was the only process, of producing copper chips. They couldn't patent the use of copper in chips, that would be absurd. Thus people frantically started trying to create copper chips in altered ways.
But heres a thought: Imagine the lawsuits
Man sues company for stealing his arm.
*grin*
Well, considering that we've been around for 10s of thousands of years, I'd say that most genetic info is 'prior art'. Maybe brand spankin new genes that do absurd stuff could be patented, but definatly not things already around - that includes crossing the genetic material of one organism with another.
IANAGS (I Am Not A Genetic Scientist), but:
The idea of "prior art" in this case may be a little different to what we are used to seeing. True, our genetic structures do "already exist", but the subject of the patent may actually claim something else, such as a method for isolating a gene, modifying it, identifying it, adding it to an organism to produce a certain outcome, and so on.
OF COURSE, the ethical considerations of patenting a genetic sequence are a completely different matter!
Why is the universe here? -Well, where else would it be?
I think gene patenting would be a mistake, but not really threatening. Here is why:
/. and see all the people that know so much more than I do, and it depresses me. On days like this I go out and have a few beers mith my buddies wo became MCSE's and I feel much better.
Genetic Assholes R Us patent's the genes for black hair and blue eyes.
You/your wife gets pregnant with a kid having those genes, can they make you give the genes up?
No.. not with out taking your kid, every cell in both parents bodies (and some of the grandparents too). Is this feasable? NO. What is feasible is some moron saying I want a kid that looks just like "blah blah blah" they do it and yay it works. Does it mean anything not really.. just there is some kid running around that is almost identical to "blah blah blah".
The worst parts hurt will be if company x patents a gene and company y needs to use it for cancer research and cant without massive fees, etc. Then company x makes the new cancer treatment and gets all the money/credit when company did all hte legwork pointing to that gene.
Sometimes I go to work or look at
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
Reread the analysis. The guidelines are mainly intended to address expressed sequence tags, or ESTs. These are fairly small bits of DNA which let you quickly identify areas of the genome. To use a somewhat-sloppy analogy, they're like regexps for the genome.
Now, imagine that I spend a few months compiling a whole bunch of useful regexps. I think I'd be within my rights to want to profit from all that work. Now, I can't patent a regexp, because in most cases it falls under obviousness. However, DNA tags are a lot less obvious, and therefore require significant effort to find and construct. Therefore, some companies claim they should be able to patent the ones they discover so that they can make money selling reagents to biologists.
ESTs, to the best of my knowledge, cannot be considered genes. They may code for a few amino acids, but as far as I know none of them codes anything near a complete enzyme.
Also, in response to the "they'll patent the cure for Alzheimer's" and "they'll patent the diabetes gene" worries: these are multifactorial diseases. It's not just one gene at the heart of them. Furthermore, it's not just one mutation causing all the cases. There are both genetic and environmental triggering factors.
Now, it's certainly true that a company might get a patent on a given kind of gene therapy or a "healing" DNA sequence that they've constructed. IMHO, this is fair. Such a sequence would be essentially equivalent to a drug, and anyone who figures out a cure for a disease deserves some profit.
Nobody is going to patent your genes and then sue you for infringement-through-living. Or rather, they might do that, but there's no way a court will even grant them the preliminary injunction, let alone damages. (If you are a genetically-engineered perfect child using "upgraded" genes that the company invented, *then* you might be in trouble.) As far as medical therapies go, gene patents are probably going to just perpetuate the system of drug patents.
Finally, a semi-offtopic response to someone who said that the genome is open-source but encrypted: I don't think it's encrypted at all. God's just not very good at commenting his code.
Alik
Genes are a natural resource. They are a natural resource for building life. Humans did not invent them, so how can a human have a right to patent it?
Is a company going to actually claim they INVENTED a gene? Are they going to charge parents to have kids because they are violating this companies patent?
The patent laws in this country need to be rewritten entirely if they can get away with this.
"You ever have that feeling where you're not sure if you're dreaming or awake?"
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
This is a really big one, that will shape the future of genetic engineering. The Cohen-Boyer patent from UCSF/Stanford 18 years ago was worth billions as it described the process by which genes could be introduced into existing organisms. That became an enormous process in molecular biology that led Genetech to its wealth.
If intellectual property protection is not given to those who find new genes, then HUGE amounts of money will not be spent investigating the potential of existing human genes to cure existing pathologies. Think about that for a second. This could keep some company from curing hemophilia, or dystonia, or schizophrenia, all of which have known contributions from at least one gene. The research for this work is being driven by industry. Without intellectual property protection, it would cease to exist. The companies exist to profit, not to make you feel better. There are not enough truly altruistic sources of research funding to make this work otherwise as things sit today.
To me that is the real issue. Do we give companies a reason to exploit the genome for potential human benefit or not ?
As RMS and others have so often said, the purpose of the patent system is to foster innovation, not to make inventors/discoverers rich. If one gene causes Alzheimer's, how do you claim a patent on that knowledge will induce others to find "alternate" ways of treating it? More importantly, why should it? It's like someone patenting the administration of drugs in pill form to a sick patient. What am I supposed to do if I don't have any pills, stick some leeches on my head and hope my migraine goes away? (Migraines make you want to roll over and die...)
The idiocy, greed, and outright contempt for human decency and welfare disgusts me more than my acid keyboard can relate.
Anyway, it might not be a bad idea to take active steps towards ensuring that something like this cannot happen. Look at the GPL. It guarantees that no rights are taken away from the user by the software it accompanies. So should we, the "users" of our own bodies (and therefore genes) not be denied any rights to them, especially not if such knowledge can raise the quality of life for all people on earth! I say the human genome should be copylefted.
"Honey, it's not working out; I think we should make our relationship open-source."
My understanding of the new regulations is that DNA sequences can be part of a patented process only if the process has significant usefulness. So, if I clone a novel gene which may do something interesting or may not, I can't write a patent application because I can't say that anything that I might do with this has significant usefulness. At least, I can't describe any kind of process (aside from more research) that I know will be of use. However, if I clone a disease that predisposes people to Alzheimer's disease, I might patent that as part of a diagnostic test for determining whether someone is likely to get Alzheimer's. I'm not sure how far this is allowed to extend to other applications one might use the DNA sequence of an Alzheimer's gene for (and I'm not sure the PTO has any idea either, until lawsuits are brought and settled over the matter).
In any event, it sounds like the right idea: reward people for substantive work towards something really useful, while keeping people from getting rich simply because they were the first ones to explicitly describe something that they had no clue how to use. But the devil is in the details, as they say, so we may well see that it is still all messed up. Especially since "substantive" is such a subjective term.
The particular company I was referring to was "Celera", but the name was eluding me at the time I was writing that response. They are the ones closest to breaking down the entire genome.
Yes, what I was indirectly saying in the response was that perhaps it is bad that the company patents the stuff, but worse if the company withholds stuff to the public. There's no reason they can't recoup their investment by simply being the first to develop whatever inventions/products/breakthroughs naturally come out of this new information.
Say for instance if some company develops out of this a product which allows humans to live forever, then sure that company should be able to patent that product.
However if this "immortality" pill is not invented in our lifetime because "Celera" is keeping the information as proprietary Corporate Trade Secrets, then that, my friend, is nothing less than a CRIME against humanity!
I must admit first of all that I didn't actually read the article. I looked at it, but then decided that I didn't quit law school for nothing :) Anyways, my feelings are strong on this subject. Flat out, companies should NOT be able to patent our DNA. DNA is should be part of the public domain. God gave it to us as open-source, although no one has yet to reverse engineer the encryption. The human gonome project will have a profound affect on mankind. It is not something that we as a species can afford to allow to be locked away as Corporate Trade Secrets. Some day, the very existence of the species may depend upon this knowledge being as common and easily available as a Gideon Bible.
There is one case that was decided a few years back where a medical institution took a blood sample from a patient, found a useful medical application for either his DNA (or some blood component) and filed for a patent.
(It's been a while so I can't recall the exact details.) In any case, the courts found in favor of the medical institution.
Be careful. If you decide to clone yourself you may have to pay someone royalties.
When you are dancing with wolves, never limp
I'm not the most knowledgable person on the subject of genes in the universe, but it seems to me that this article is not actually talking about patenting genes that necessarily occur in humans. It's just talking about granting patents to synthesized genes, which may or may not occur in humans. Basically, the simpler the gene is (less combinations of amino acids), the more likely it is to occur in humans. To solve both that issue, and the idea that patents on genes that are too simple may cripple further research, I'd suggest that guidelines be drawn to specify how complex a gene must be before it is patentable. Also, companies should be encouraged to search for methods of synthesis for, and also practical applications of their genes, and to patent those instead of the genes themselves.
"I don't marshal my words to be quotable" - Captain Sodium, Gigsville...
Why would anyone ever consider allowing a patent on somethin we're made of? So a company gets a patent on a gene that we're all comprised of... Does that company therefore own a little piece of each of us?
God no; someone get my lawyer on the phone...
Failure isn't falling. Failure is staying down.
That said, I think that the objections of many slashdotters is not that patents are necessarily an evil concept, but rather that a) the patent system in the US is deeply flawed, and b) much of that flaw revolves around patents being much too easy to obtain. Patents should allow for a reasonable rate of return for an actual innovation. After all, it is in all of our best interests to encourage companies to use their financial resources to fund products and services that we find beneficial.
Let's say that there is a cure for a leukemia that can be developed through the use of genetic technology, but the cure will take several years and around a billion dollars to develop, owing both to the complexity of the problem and the scope and duration of clinical trials required to verify that the treatment will not, while solving one problem, create another one that may be even worse. Let's also say that said hypothetical treatment comes in the form of a small, easily reproducible pill. Fine. Now, ask yourself, what company on earth is going to undertake that sort of investment if that have no guarantee that some generic drug maker won't simply take their product, do a little chemical exploration, and pop out a duplicate product at one tenth the price long before the original developer has had even the slightest chance of making back their investment? Think of it this way: would you keep going to work if they stopped paying you? Hey, maybe you enjoy your job, but eventually you're going to notice that your fridge is empty, the house is cold and dark, and the toilets won't flush.
It may offend our delicate sensibilities that a child may only be cured of a terrible disease if they, their guardians, or the relevant insurance company can afford the price charged by the developer of the needed drug, but really, this is the way the universe works. When was the last time you accused a farmer of being a heartless f***ing bast**d because he actually has the nerve to charge you for the food you need to stay alive?
But I have digressed slightly from the point. The example above is what I would consider to be a suitable reason to allow for a patent, or some form of intellectual property protection, for the simple reason that unless it is provided, that company will not even try to develop that lifesaving drug, and our hypothetical patient is going to be fertilizing the daffodils before too long. But contrast the above example to something like simply uncovering a gene in our DNA. Obviously, to my eye, the two represent vastly different levels of effort and investment, with the former far outweighing the latter. Rewarding them even close to equally is not a rational approach. So, what we need is perhaps a more flexible system that tailors the patents more closely to the actual needs of the company, product, and consumer. Under this sort of system, the Amazon 1-Click patent might be granted, but it would only have a duration of maybe a month.
Solutions? Perhaps a system whereby a company applying for a patent must submit a line by line of development costs, with the understanding that the patent protection will evaporate the moment the revenues on the product in question reach payback plus a suitable percentage return above costs. What if a company should try to cheat by inflating R&D costs? Perhaps some sort of peer review system. If company X claims manpower and resource costs that exceed those required to build the pyramids, maybe a litle red flag should go up and some experts brought in to look at the problem. It will be tricky at first, but eventually the patent office should have a reasonable idea of the actual development costs faced by companies in different sectors of the economy. The advances in Net technology may allow this sort of thing to be feasible. Anyway, it's just one thought among many...
Ultimately, down the line I think that the Internet and the data revolution might provide the better third way that has always been impossible. Ultimately, this is all about fredom of choice, and personally I don't mind paying a bit more for something if I understand that there are further benefits accruing to me for doing so. By purchasing medications, for example, from the company that developed them rather than a generic manufacturer, my support of the innovator rather than imitator all but ensures that the developer will thrive and continue to develop new and useful treatments that may just save my life down the road. To that end, the ability of the Net to help me gather and organize my choices about which company to deal with will only increase in the future, and in the end that may be the best way. However, there is still a long way to go in that respect, so until then maybe e-mail some presidential candidates and demand that they look at the patent system. These people do theoretically work for you, ya know?
Peace.
In a world without walls, there is no need for Windows.