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?

Comments

This is not a black and white issue, nothing is.

[delmoi]

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?",

What I was hoping for:

[/]

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?

the nutty view of it all

[nutty]

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*

Copyleft the human genome!

[Deadbolt]

Biotech companies will have the patent on the gene(s) that causes Alzheimer's, assuming there is one. They can not only charge exorbitant amounts of money for possible curing mutations or even (gasp) prenatal prevention, but they can prosecute and stop someone else from doing it!

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.