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Dolly Cloning Method Patented

Posted by Hemos on from the deserved-patents dept.

Cy Guy writes "The BBC is reporting that Roslin Institute, along with two government agencies that helped fund the research, has been awarded a UK patent for the technology used to produce a clone of Dolly the Sheep in 1996. Roslin has already been sold an exclusive license for the technology to the U.S. company Geron for $45M. "

4 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. This one seeme reasonable by SimonK · · Score: 4

    Although I'm not a big fan of patents in general, I have to say that this one seems reasonable. It certainly meets the criterea of novelty and usefulness that seem to be lacking in so many software patents.

  2. Dangerous ground. by TheDullBlade · · Score: 5

    While this certainly seems to be a reasonable application of patent law, rewarding a genuinely impressive advancement of the state of the art, I wonder what kind of precedent this sets.

    After all, this is not a machine or mechanism, but a procedure developed in the course of scientific research.

    To what degree will this inhibit research into improvements on the method?

    What if somebody patented a medical operation? "I'm sorry, Doctor, if you remove that tumor we'll have to sue you."

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    /.
  3. We'll call them when we need more sheep by Greyfox · · Score: 4

    I gather this patent allows them to corner the world market for CLONED SHEEP, which could potentially run into the BILLIONS of dollars over the next decade.

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    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  4. Open source, patents and scientific community by jw3 · · Score: 4
    There is an article in today's Nature issue entitled "In praise of open software". It states, among other things, that "[bioinformatic] Tools [for genomics] that add value to genome data are to be welcomed, but as the licensing strategy being adopted by Celera Genomics becomes clear (see page 231), it gives new grounds for wariness." I know this is slightly off-topic, I just want to stress that the growing number of patents / license in my field of science is a matter of concern for many biologists, as it is clear from this article in the leading scientific journal.

    Unfortunately, those of you who have no access to "Nature" cannot read the full article, but I put some exerts here. Actually, it was my today's slashdot submission (rejected, of course - I have never seen anything posted to slashdot referring to any good biological site). I thought the article is interesting, because it targets the whole scientific community (there is hardly a biologist out there not reading "Nature"), and is the first article in such a journal which mentions Linus Torvalds and Linux, therefore making these names known to a large number of scientists who never heard them before. In a certain way, it could bring Linux more publicity then an editorial in "Times".

    Regards,

    January