Posted by
Hemos
on from the just-finish-already dept.
marks writes, "Wired has an article about the Genome Project. The article takes quotes from doctors who want the squabbling over 'property rights' to stop and the project to go forward to benefit patients. "
One of the things that is getting very tiresome about Slashdork is the misapplication of the GPL. The GPL was designed as a software license. If you are talking about applying it to music, graphic arts, or genome mapping, you are misapplying it. It also makes you sound like a narrow-minded frothing zealot.
There's nothing wrong with wanting looser, more consumer-friendly licenses on intellectual property, but shouting "GPL IT!" everytime copyrightable material is discussed is just lame.
Turn off your computer, go to a symphony, catch a play, read a book, and realize that the whole damn world doesn't revolve around Free Software vs. Amazon Patents. Ok?
(rant over. thanks.)
Re:Genomes and maps
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2
This is most definitely not about copyrighting maps. This is about filings for patents on DNA sequences that represent putative genes with putative functions, based on no experimental evidence whatsoever. Celera filed 6,500 of these in October (see Washington Post article), and my guess is that the number has increased since then. There is a good reason for the 'squabbling' between public and private ventures. Patenting DNA sequence is absurd and will most certainly be a hindrance to the research community!
You ain't seen nothing yet.
by
Amphigory
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· Score: 2
Consider this: there is currently nothing in IP law to prevent the patenting of medical techniques. For example, let us suppose that a Dr. in Switzerland invents a new kind of open heart surgery: he could take out a patent on it and charge $500,000 per use. If you can't afford it, you die. What do you do?
This is a huge, and explosive ethical question. Currently, medical agencies are able to justify denying certain costly treatments because the cost of the treatment generally stems from the actual cost of doing the treatment. That is, a liver transplant costs $1 million because it takes that much effort to transplant a liver.
The only case where this is not the case is in pharmaceuticals. And there, it is primarily the amortized cost of tremendous amounts of R&D that drives the prices up. (This is really an aside, but recently South Africa told several US drug companies to bug off regarding certain AIDS medications and started making them without a license. Bottom line: half their population has AIDS, and they can't afford the drugs. The drug companies tried to sue, but then got smart and relented when they saw which way the wind blew. The pharmaceutical situation will endure in the US only as long as the few people obviously dying from lack of drugs are from marginalized segments of the society.)
The case we are heading to is the one where a heart surgeon will be operating on a patient who cannot afford to license a certain technique, and he will have to choose between disregarding patent law or risking his patient's life. This could also eaily come up in the genome issue.
The problem is that our society does not have a clear ethic describing the value of human life. This is evident all over the place: the abortion debate, the assisted suicide debate, even the "violent video games" debate. What is the value of man, and how great a crime is it kill one? What value is life compared to freedom? What about economic freedom? Is buying a drug company executive a sports car really worth a single life?
My point is not some kind of Marxism. My point is that we need to be asking these questions.
On what basis can we construct an ethical system for our society? What is the underlying principal? Who defines right?
--
-- -- Slashdot sucks.
Re:The points are correct, but....
by
Otter
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· Score: 2
It's true that genes are not patentable. In general, though, genes are patented on their (fairly obvious) uses.
I agree that there's a problem here. In fact, I'd say that, next to the privacy issue, the level of advance required for a patent is the biggest social issue in genomics. There's a definite need for thoughtful discussion and for lobbying. I just don't see how comments like "Actually, these people are making Amazon.com look like amateurs. DNA sequences are patented even though the patenter has no idea what the sequence does. It's worse than software patents." contribute to that.
(If you'll excuse some crotchety old-timer/.'er grumbling -- the reason I became addicted to this site years ago was that when a story was posted, a slew of knowledgeable people would put it into context. Now the discussion for any story with more than 50 posts is 60% zealots shouting the party line at each other and 35% grits and Natalie Portman. And a comment like "to think that there are "property rights" on something that is in everyone of us is luducris." gets marked up to +3!)
As to Celera, they haven't been around long. But shotgunning the genome makes them a competiter to the genome project, longstanding or not. They said they were going to do the easy parts of the fly, they did They say they will do the easy parts of the human, well....
My point about "longstanding" was that the Wired article was superficial and vague, most notably in their description of a company that's, what, two years old? Incidentally, their claim to have shotgunned the fly sequence is typical Celera BS. They relied on a physical map from the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project for their assembly. As for the human sequence, as you say, well... Hopefully there will be an equitable compromise reached.
The conflict here...is between the Genome project and a private company...The two have been in talks to assimilate the data into a single database...
This was part of my point, though. First, I don't believe that you can patent the database. Copyright it, perhaps -- but not patent it (you could patent the process by which the information for the database was gathered, perhaps). Further, Celera could certainly copyright their database. The Genome Project could copyright theirs. They could both copyright the compilation of data.
You would end up with three databases and three seperate copyrights. Each owning a copyright to their own data and a third joint-copyright of the joined data. We see this all the time elsewhere.
I think they are hung-up on the fact that this was such an incredibly massive undertaking and to do it again would break almost anyone's bank account. So copyrighting the data will still give a large amount of wealth and power to whoever owns it. (A lab at OHSU wants to look at information that may help them enhance their treatment of heart disease? Great, fork over the bucks to access our database(s).)
I can understand the conflict if a large portion of Celera's data was directly attributed to the Genome Project's work itself and was not data Celera obtained by its own work (or under a co-operative contract between themselves and those running the Genome Project). The article itself did not seem to contain any specific information with regard to exactly who acquired what part of the data and how, not to mention what any original agreement may have been. --- icq:2057699 seumas.com
Hey, this is a project which will not only greatly advance the medical profession and lead to vast improvements in the quality of human wellbeing and discoveries of new treatments for incurable diseases, but bring in fantastic profits for hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry as well - doctors should have no say in the matter.
Chuck - who's genetic makeup is protected by copyright law and international treaty. Any unauthorised use or reproduction (?!) may result in severe civil and criminal penalties and will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible under the law. This genetic material is presented "as is" without warrenty, express or implied, as to merchantability or fitness for survival.
I have always felt that this subject was the kind of issue with wide enough interest to outrage the average voter if the PTO went too far in extending "ownership" of any kind. I mean, the average Joe Sixpack (and Joe Six-figure, for that matter) doesn't care who gets a patent for 'windowing' dates or selling books on the internet, but when you tell him that Perkin-Elmer patented his genes, he's gonna sit up and pay attention.
And maybe these genome reserchers understood that...
My understanding of the situation...
by
jagapen
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· Score: 2
...is that both the HGP and Celera are mapping the genome of a small, homogenous population of people. In order to be really useful in the medical field, they'll need ways to sequence the genes of individual patients quickly and cheaply. However, as I understand it, Celera is using a `shotgun' approach to sequencing, i.e. chop up whole strands of DNA, sequence the bits and try to fit them together like some demented jigsaw puzzle that has overlapping, redundant pieces. This method dispenses with the time-consuming finishing process which would result in high-quality sequence data. In essense, Celera is making a rough draft, hence the comment that their data is more valuable when combined with HGP data. Now, this method is good for getting a rough-draft sequence done quickly, but doesn't really apply to the goal I mentioned above: quickly and cheaply sequencing genes from individual patients. This may be why Celera is so hung up on protecting their database; if they haven't developed any quick, cheap, accurate sequencing methods, the database is their only asset! (At least in terms of the human genome.) If this is so, I really have no sympathy for them. If this is not so, somebody please correct me.
Abolish the FDA? Are you serious?
by
Guppy
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· Score: 2
My father-in-law was one such case.
I'm sorry for your loss. My mother died of lung cancer also.
"If we want fast development of new drugs, abolish the FDA and get the gov out of the Human Genome business. "
I think you have a perspective that is untainted by history. The creation of the FDA around the turn of the century (Although the FDA will not bear that name until 1930) was one of several responses to the appalling state of the pharmaceutical and food industries that preceeded it.
In those days, adulteration of food with sometimes dangerous dyes, preservatives, and fillers was extremely common (Look up Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" and the history of "Swill Milk"), and the pharmaceutical market was flooded with quack cures and patent medicines whose main ingredients were often alcohol or laudanum.
A number of laws were passed in response to this situation (in particular Roosevelt's Food and Drugs Act). The FDA began as an agency that provided chemical analysis and support for these laws. It quickly gained an international reputation for effectiveness, and became the model for many similar agencies in other developed countries.
The FDA is a rarity in government, an agency that is both highly competent and beneficial. I happen to work as a scientist in the commercial pharmaceutical industry, and the FDA regulates oversees us very tightly, both in research and production environments. It generates mounds of paperwork and adsorbs lots of extra time and labor--but this is a *good* thing. Thanks to the FDA, you can be assured that medicines you buy have been tested for purity and potency both before (materials), during, and after manufacture, and that there's a full trail of accountabiliy for the both the end product, the materials, and everyone who handled them. Believe me, few companies would take these quality control steps if it weren't for the FDA.
I do think that fast-track development needs to be extended for certain severe diseases. In the case of AIDS, it was not just the existence of a powerful lobbying group that allowed fast-track to occur. It was also the complete absence of any conventional treatment for the disease, coupled with a 100% progression to terminal illness that did it, and the FDA does tend to be more lenient with trials for other 100% fatal diseases.
The main arguement against extension to something like cancer is that there exists a conventional treatment that has some effectiveness, even if it's not a whole lot. The problem is, the majority of experimental medicines are not better than conventional treatment. The majority are worse, and nobody ever hears about the failures unless they are spectacular--and that's the problem with "Kill or Cure".
I have been doing a lot of thinking lately on the subject of patents and copyrights and am quickly coming to the conclusion that we are seeing the real Johnny Mnemonic right now, albeit without Keanu Reeves, thank goodness.
Think about it - on one side we have MegaCorp patenting everything under the sun or being really assholeish with copyrights (played by Bezos and Valente) On the other we have the good Dr. and the hacker (played by Henry Rollins and Ice-T) trying to get the information out to everyone.
Instead of doing good for humanity, MegaCorp holds back because they are making more money by selling something to give relief instead of the cure.
When is this "everything for a buck" mentality going to stop? I have no problem with folks making money, but this is all just getting too insane for humanity's good.
Really, the only thing we are missing from the whole Johnny Mnemonic thing is a bunch of gun toting hitmen out to get JM... but then again they are here - in the form of lawyers.
I was of the understanding that the human genome project was funded and overseen by the United States Department of Energy? Doesn't this more or less nullify patenting of that information?
U.S. Government employees can obtain patents. You may be thinking of copyrights. In general, material produced by the government can't be copyrighted. Besides, can you talk the original author into registering the copyright?
[cut to court scene where Celera is prosecuting someone for infringing on their DNA patents]
Prosecutor : So you see, your Honor. This person is very obviously "digesting" food. We discovered and patented how this process works on a fundamental level, and are trying to recieve recompense for our studies.
Defendant : but, but (tummy growls)
Posecutor : That'll be another five dollars.
Defendant's Public Defender : Your honor, I'd like to call a special witness to establish prior art.
Judge : Okee-dokey
Bailiff : The defendants call GOD to the stand.
Bailiff : Place your hand on the Bible, Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, uh, God.
GOD : I AM THE TRUTH
Bailiff : Good enough for me.
Defendant's Lawyer : So you say you knew about this whole DNA thing years ago?
GOD : YES, BILLIONS OF YEARS IN THE PLANNING STAGES, BILLIONS OF YEARS IN THE GROWING STAGES AND MILLIONS OF YEARS OF FIELD TESTING.
DL : Yet, in all that time you failed to get a patent on your creation?
GOD : PLEASE REFER TO INTER-DIMENSIONAL DOCUMENT #F45369 DETAILING THE CREATION AND EVOLUTION OF A SENTIENT SPECIES.
DL : Umm, all I see is a bright light..
(enough of this, time for lunch...patenting parts of people is stupid, really stupid. "Owning" existing genetic code is similarly so. If they actually invent something, maybe, but just finding something and thereby owning it...they get to name it, but owning it, NO)
A company trying to keep its property
by
Masloki
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· Score: 2
Seems to me, the key to this story is "Our sole concern, the only concern we have, is that our data would be used by a competing database company," Gilman said. "We want to protect the database from being pirated," he added. All they are looking for is clear terms of use. They are allowing that they don't mind sharing and contributing etc, but they do want to control who can access this information and possibly how much access they have. And by doing that, they stay in business.
It doesn't seem that they are trying to screw anyone else. It is possible that another company could obtain their information and cut them out of the market. Not good when you have spent a few million dollars.
-- Sig-"Out beyond fields of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there." Jelaluddin Rumi
Re:A company trying to keep its property
by
ucblockhead
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· Score: 3
Actually, I think the real issue is not that they want to charge people for creating treatments from their data. They want to charge people for their data. There is a difference. And they certainly have a right to.
In other words, if they sequence gene XYZ, they certainly have the right to sell you this information in any manner they want. What they don't have the right to do is to tell anyone else that they can't sequence gene XYZ. In other words, they don't own the gene itself. They merely own their information about it.
It is no different from me doing lots of anatomical studies on the human heart, and then copyrighting the information and putting it up for sale. I can certainly do that. It doesn't mean that I "own" the human heart. You are free to gather your own information and copyright that. The only thing you can't do is copy mine without my permission.
Same here. All Celera is demanding is the right to be paid for the information they aquired if you get it from them. They are not denying you the right to go aquire the same information.
--
The cake is a pie
Re:A company trying to keep its property
by
seaneddy
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· Score: 3
Indeed, that would be fine, if Celera would be clear about that.
Instead, they have tried to cast themselves as a competitor to the public genome project. Our goal is to provide the human genome sequence as a freely available research resource. Venter initially declared that that was also Celera's goal. Now, though, they're filing thousands of provisional patents and asking for exclusive distribution rights to the human genome. That's not compatible with the public goals. Celera should just admit that they're a business, and stop trying to claim otherwise. The proposed collaboration fell apart because Celera would not accept the terms that *they* initially stated: that the human genome sequence would be made freely available to everyone. (Indeed, Venter testified before the US Senate on this very point.)
Well it is just software, add it to my portfolio
by
xixax
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· Score: 2
I have my software patent:
A sequence of carrier molecules that can be used to replicate software through biological life forms.
As a supporting patent, we are also patenting the description of geographical areas by reprenting them in a virtualised form on a compressed cellolose subtrate using a biologically based light sensor descibed in patent 1 as a reader and chemical compounds that rely on the differential reflection of electro-magnetic radiation to encode the virtualised geography onto the substrate.
In regards to patent 1, we intend on charging an imodest royalty whenever licenced users engage in sexual intercourse. Patent 2 will be vigorously enforced, even though our only licenced application for the forseable future is a 1956 AAA roadmap of Bumfukt AZ.
X.
--
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Re:Ups and Downs of patenting DNA sequences
by
ucblockhead
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· Score: 2
While I agree with you (mostly) on gene patents, it is important to make a distinction between that a copyrights. What we are talking about here is not the patenting of human genes but the copyrighting of a particular database of human gene descriptions. That is a whole different ball game. And, IMHO, no different from copyrighting an anatomy book.
In terms of patents (not directly related to this story) I do think that some patents might be ok, if they represent a new, genetically engineered sequence not originally found in nature.
Or how about this as a worst-case scenario: Celera patents gene XYZ. Lurking in the gene sequence of XYZ is that cure for cancer. The XYZ sequence is licenced by a few people, but none of them recognise that the cure is there. Celera's patent prevents the publication of XYZ's sequence by anyone else.
Again, it depends on whether we are talking about patents or copyrights. If they copyright a set of information that includes the sequence for XYZ, they cannot prevent anyone from publishing that sequence unless it was originally derived from them. Anyone can get their own sequencing equipment, sequence the gene, and do whatever the hell they want.
This is very different from a patent, which would prevent anyone from using the sequence. I am nearly positive they cannot patent an existing sequence, only a new one not found in nature. (At least, I hope so.)
Anyway, patents expire in something like twenty years, not eighty. It is copyrights that expire only after an ungodly long time.
--
The cake is a pie
Anal for anal (IANAL).
by
ucblockhead
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· Score: 2
Trademark is different from copyright. There is no such thing as a "copyrighted" verb. In any case, I may be wrong (IANAL) but I don't think a trademark can stop me from using a word in normal speech, as long as I am not advertising a product or somesuch.
While capitalism does tend to lead to efficiency in many types of markets, it doesn't work in all markets.
One failures in capitalism are in defense-spending. An army is a very ineffecient use of resources. Capitalism also tends to not create incentives to create goods where the initial cost is large, but the marginal cost is very small, like creative works. (music, software, film,...) Therefore we have government for defense, and we have monopolies (patents and copyright) granted for creative works.
The free market also assumes that there is more than one source of any particular good, and that the sources are competing with each other. (No price fixing, collusion, or monopolistic practices.) This doesn't always hold true in the face of patents and copyrights.
The problem with the automated patenting of genes is that there cannot be competetion; patents are temporary monopolies. And because of CRA's squatting on large tracts of the geonome, they will be retarding research. The geonome is a large book in a cryptic language. CRA is getting a monopoly on pages, just because they transcribed them, while the people who translate those pages into discoveries, cures, and knowledge may get very little.
Also, the monopoly granted through patents isn't coming from the free market, and it won't be 'fixed' by the free market either. A free market doesn't have patents. In a pure free market the moment an innovation becomes public, it becomes public domain and free for all to use. Is this the free market that you want?
Patents and copyrights and government exist to overcome the shortcomings in the free market and to make civilization more efficient. Sometimes they fail at that, and new laws have to be made to try to restore efficiency.
[Personally, I feel that patents and copyright are OK if they're properly allowed. Patents should be allowed on those creations which actually contribute to civilization and knowledge. Copyright is OK if the term is a reasonable length, I like 20 years (with a 20 year extension). This was the origional term.) By granting patents for trivial inventions and granting copyrights for a hundred years (after death), you cheapen them for all.]
Backwards view, as usual for the media
by
rlglende
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· Score: 2
Fleming put the patent for penicillin into the public domain, resulting in a several-year delay until it got to patients: without a guaranteed profit, no company could afford the development and testing expenses.
That was in the 1940s, before we had massive regulation by the FDA. Now it costs $500M to develop a new drug and get it past the regulatory hurdles. --> the drug industry looks like a regulated monopoly or the high-end military supply industry.
If we want fast development of new drugs, abolish the FDA and get the gov out of the Human Genome business.
Compare progress of AIDS and lung cancer. AIDS had a pressure group to make the FDA relax regulations on experimental drugs. The 'fast track' approach killed people, but progress has been very rapid. With more absolute $s put into lung cancer (a simpler disease, I believe) people are still dying untreated and/or while participating in safety trials for the many new drugs becoming available.
My father-in-law was one such case. "No ill effect from the doses in the safety trial. Great, now go home and die." He did, within about 6 weeks.
"Kill or cure" would have been a choice available to him in the absence of a bureaucracy.
Lew
-- "The Constitution, the WHOLE Constitution, and nothing but the CONSTITUTION."
Time to declare our rights ....
by
taniwha
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· Score: 2
Gee - I've got two kids - each with unique genetic codes... time for my wife and I to race down to the copyright office and register our creative works before someone else does
I wonder if we should get them tattooed with a "(c)..." just to make sure.
Of course we'll gift them with their own copyright when they hit 18 and they can do what they like with it.
I guess we have to send a sample of our works to the copyright office.... but I wonder if many voodoo practioners work there....
DNA sequences are patented even though the patenter has no idea what the sequence does.
Sort of. Patenters have to provide some explanation of what it does, and a specific description of its application. But they can be pretty vauge, and even incorrect from time to time -- patent examiners have no clue what they're reading.
For example, CCR5 and CXCCR4, genes that code for chemotactic receptors targetted by HIV, were both granted patents a few days ago. The patent specifically describes how the receptors interact with chemotactic factors, but barely mentions HIV. Still, any anti-AIDS drugs that blocks CCR binding will still be subject to the patent.
Long ago, when I was doing politics with the Coalition for Science and Commerce I was shopping around a legislative reform aimed at buying scientific information rather than directly fund scientific research. If I recall correctly, it was called "The National Science Trust" which would have endowed this enormous escrow account with specifications of information to be purchased. Basically, if you could quantify your desired information in some way, you could associate a dollar value to some quantity and the first to deliver the information would get the dollar value.
Since the scientific method is based on replication to achieve greater confidence, and greater confidence corresponds to added information, the quantification needs to include metrics on how much information is added by replication measurements, and reward those replications as well -- albiet at a lower rate since less information accumulates per measurement replication.
This would have handled all sorts of things such as environmental monitoring, human genome sequencing, adding significant digits onto known physical constants, etc.
The value of something like this is that it cleanly separates the role of public and private sectors and gets government out of detailed analyses of who is more likely to succeed in their proposed research efforts. Of course the primary reason the legislation wasn't passed into law is because it gets government out of detailed analyses of who is more likely to succeed in theirproposed research efforts -- guvvies just love to "pick winners" because that is power.
Genes are not patentable - applications based on a gene sequence are
False. Or rather, ought to be true, but false in practice. Consider, if you will, this press release announcing a patent on a key HIV cellular receptor. Nominally, the patent does cover "techniques" related to it, but the techniques listed on the front page are all just references to standard molecular experiments that can be performed when you know a gene. The basic argument seems to be that the gene is a process for producing a protein, and is therefore allowed. (View front page of patent at IBM.)
It's begun. I think the patent system is great, but genes and software (the two new and rapidly-growing fields) are not handled properly. Too many people stand to gain from the current system for it to be fixed. IMHO, the correct thing to do would be to take a patented gene (the sequence must be disclosed in the patent, and all you need is that sequence, a lab, and a few grad students...) and come up with some amazing cure. Announce it to the world. State exactly how to use it. The patent-holder will sue. You then get to go before a court and explain that BigGeneCorp is holding back treatment that could save thousands. Eventually, you will go to the Supreme Court, which will probably throw away all such patents because they're secretly a bunch of libertarians. It'll cost millions and take a decade, but genes will be free again.
There's also a simpler but less powerful attack. This patent covers one sequence of nucleotides. Most human proteins can be encoded by more than one sequence. Take this sequence and find a spot that (according to computer modeling) allows polymorphisms. Express that new protein to be sure it works just as well. Now patent that and make the patent freely available. This can, in theory, be done for almost any patented gene. (This is a business model. You may use this business model which I have just invented if you do not attempt to profit from it. If you try to profit from it, I will patent your grandmother and have you killed for infringement.:-)
Alik
Patenting genes is a bit more complicated
by
smoondog
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· Score: 2
There are a couple of issues to gene patents that aren't being addressed here. (I'm generally against the patenting of genetic material, especially when someone patents a sequence and doesn't give credit to the 30 researchers who spent their lives researching that sequence's product.)
Those issues are: How are sequencers going to protect their businesses. This isn't like open source where some 25 year old can do it in the evenings. This costs bucks. If they can't patent the sequences they wont *publish* the sequences limiting research on the sequences. They, in general, don't want to limit research, they want to make money. How do big public genome projects get done? Through government funding, which is certainly not going to sequence everything...
Also, If a gene is patented, often times it is to protect the researcher's interest in that sequence out of fear that someone else (like Venter's Celera) will do it for them. Personally, I think this is driving a good part of patents today.
Protection of intellectual property is important in biotech. These companies cost millions to start up and run. They run for years without a product. Like I said, it really isn't much like startup internet companies being started by a couple of people working evenings and weekends. Lab space is expensive, techs and employees for biotechs often start at higher wages than internet co's and require a lot more resources.
First of all, while I'll admit investor information is not a perfect source of information, it isn't normally complete marketing crap due to FTC regulations. That said...
FYI, the technique used by CRA is called shotgun sequencing, and it has been debated before, but until recently was thought too resource intensive for use on very large genomes.
My understanding was that that is one of the innovations that CRA has brought to the table. Not just the resource intensiveness, but many thought that assembly wouldn't be possible using that technique.
According to this New York Times Article, CRA has also developed computer software to solve the assembly problem.
Look, the point of all this is that you claim that there is nothing new that CRA is doing except spending money, and that is simply not true. As the saying goes, if it were that easy, everyone would do it.
There is certainly a lot of questions still surrounding CRA's business model, but I think you're being a little hard on them.
CRA may only patent 300 or so of the thousands of genes they have preliminary patents on, but these 300 will have been carefully picked over by CRA and the drug companies so that no one else gets access to anything of serious value. Now, explain to me how this sort of behavior is supposed to encourage calculated risk and entrepreneurism in the biotech community?
For the same reason that we allow drug patents... it's not that easy, and it's very expensive to do analysis and produce drugs. The only way it can happen is to allow a drug company to recoup the investment in discovering, testing and producing the drug. Otherwise, you have a drug company investing 100s of millions to develop a drug, only to see it manufactured overseas by anyone and everyone. That does not foster innovation.
You think CRA innovates? I've got news--they're using off-the-shelf machinery to do a brute-force assembly of the human genome.
A quote from their investor information: "To map all 80,000 human genes and find our SNPs, Celera is using Whole Genome Sequencing, a technique pioneered by several of Celera's scientists who were formerly at The Institute for Genomic Research. Using sound waves, a chromosome sample is dispersed into small DNA fragments that can be sequenced, then mapped back together based on their unique base-pair coding. In many cases, a 500-base-pair overlap at the end of a fragment is sufficient to determine that a particular piece of DNA belongs on a particular chromosome."
In other words, there is a reason that they've been able to do it so fast. They are years ahead of the Human Genome Project.
First off, CRA isn't *doing* squat with the sequence data they collect. They are neither equipped nor staffed to do the science that will determine the function of the genes that they sequence. What CRA *is* doing is what pundits call "prospecting the genome." I call it genome squatting.
Why don't you read their investor statements before spouting off about which you know nothing. Their entire business model is based on selling analysis of the information to drug companies. They already have several large firms signed to use them.
In most countries, there are long waiting lists for elective surgery, and sometimes even for major surgeries. Advanced medical equipment like CAT scanners are rare, and again there are waiting lists. There is a reason that people who can afford it come to the US for treatment.
But you will be treated even if you have no money and happen to get sick or have an accident.
Same in the US. Anyone can walk into a hospital and get emergency treatment by law.
But why should everything have a price? Especially those innovations which are good for everyone.
Because that's what works. Innovations happen because someone works very hard to create them, and the best incentive to innovation is giving someone a path to a better life through hard work.
I mean, why was agriculture in the Soviet Union such a disaster, when food is even more important than medical care? You would think that farmers would recognize their obligation to feed the country, and work their hardest. Well, it didn't happen that way. There was no point in working hard, because hard work or easy work gave you exactly the same day-to-day result.
I wonder if the researchers on the Genome project use Gnome because they're almost spelled the same... and they're also very smart people, and anyone with half a brain and linux with x uses Gnome, of course:)
Mike Roberto - roberto@apk.net -- AOL IM: MicroBerto
Wear your seatbelt, a helmet, and a condom -- take responsibility for yourself, and don't come stealing my money to pay your medical bills.
I've got some news for you: Accidents and diseases is not something that just happens to people who "don't run [their] life right" Life is not fair. Noone can afford treatment for a serious condition without some form of insurance. I actually believe that the government is better suited to handle that insurance, since it is in their best interest to keep me well, voting for them and paying my taxes.
--
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Law, IP, and real usefulness
by
Nyarly
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· Score: 2
If this story is news, and not just a bunch of legal malarky blown out of proportion, I'm beginning to confirm my opinion that Celera is my least favorite corporate species: those that intend to make money using litigation.
The HGI has been around for decades. It's common knowledge amongst anyone with half an ear for science news, (or who've played Civ II) and I can't believe that Celera's founders had never heard of it.
So, Celera is taking new technology and intends to finish the job faster. And probably cheaper. Which catechism insists rules out "better." But what they want to do is claim the arena. The Wired article describes Celera's attempt to collaborate with HGI in such a way that it would prevent the Genome's public release. And, I'm certain, their intention has been to manage this one way or another since their inception.
So, without actually doing anything new or useful, Celera intends to own the world market on the Human Genome for the life of their IP (rather than the estimated two year margin between their completion and the probably superior public release in 2003). And IP being what it is nowadays, that's likely to be much too long.
IMO, this is a key example of the Way Things Are failing We The People, and Us the Species. Between this and Palm Inc. expanding by 57.5 points on its first day (when 3Com is worth dirt in comparison, although they're the vast majority stockholder), I begin to wonder a> when the mainspring is going to snap and kill somebody and b> when and with what we can replace all this Victorian crap we have underpinning everything.
"Who owns your genetic information? Might it be the doctors who, in the course of removing your spleen, decode a few cells and turn them into a patented product? In 1990 the Supreme Court of California said yes, marking another milestone on the information superhighway. "
The doctors made millions; the unwitting cell-provider received nothing and was told he had given up his rights to his own genetic material to the doctors. Be very afraid.
- tokengeekgrrl "The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions
I can't even be sure that you were implying this, but people should know that the fact that scientific research in nessecarily tied into "profit" is NOT because all scientists are inherently greedy (although I can't say about Craig Venter, to be sure...)
I am a research biologist working right now at a NON-PROFIT research organization, and I will tell you that the costs of research are so enormous and prohibitive that government funding NEVER covers it, even in such "sexy" useful fields as genomics. For example, the cost of creating and keeping a colony of research mice for a year often runs as high as $60,000 or more for each laboratory, which consists of a principal investigator, maybe a couple of post docs, some technicians and (cheap) graduate students. This does not include salaries, rent on lab space, equipment cost (both initial and maintainence - average maintainance contract over $5,000/year per machine) reagent cost, computers, software, etc, etc. Therefore kissing up to corporate monies, or BECOMING coporate monies, as Craig Venter has done, is almost always neccassary, but not because the biologists are trying to make it that way.
People like Venter that establish their own biotech companies to make the big bucks should not immediately be villified either; as the process of becoming a research scientist is often as hard or harder (and time-consuming) as becoming a medical doctor, and most of us don't mind that they get the big bucks because we know they've worked hard and continue to do so. However, staying in non-profit academic research, while often more respected, does not get you any sort of equivalent job security (unless you can fight your way to tenure) or salary. Most of the people here that do create something new and patentable WANT to patent it, often for the money, but again I don't think that wanting to be rewarded for your work in a capitalist society is neccesarily evil.
This is not to say that I think scientists SHOULD be patenting sequences that they have no current use for, and do not even know yet whether they are introns ("throw-away" or structural parts of the chromosomes) or exons (genes), let alone what they do. If you come up with a novel assay, procedure, or something else with a gene you have sequenced, fine - patent that use. But patenting sequences themselves (that you have not personally created, which can be done) is 'patently' (ha!) deplorable.
You cannot remove the profit motive from scientific research except in periods of war or other danger.
This isn't even remotely true. There are many projects which are financed for profitable gain. But, the vast majority of basic research is done for scientific and societal reasons. It is not true on the funding or on the individual level that it's done for profit motive. On the funding level, the government and universities don't fund particle physics research for profit, clearly. And, on the individual level, physicists get paid bumpkus compared to what they could be making elsewhere. Case in point: I left a software consulting job paying mucho dinero, with plenty of stock options, to come back to grad school. I can assure you profit motive had nothing to do with it.
If this research wasn't being financed by corporate entities, it would still get done, it would just get done much more slowly.
* mild mannered physics grad student by day *
-- * mild mannered physics grad student by day *
* daring code hacker by night *
http://www.silent-tristero.com
Human Genome Patent News
by
Wintermancer
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· Score: 2
Hooters Media, March 8, 2000:
Lucasfilm announced that they have patented the DNA sequence to Natalie Portman.
"We felt that there was an overwhelming demand for black market clones of Natalie Portman, and in order to prevent pirated copies of Natalie, we have secured our intellectual property rights," A Lucasfilm spokesperson stated at a press conference. "We intend to do this for others as well."
When questioned on the legitimacy of patenting a still living human, their answer was direct. "When we hired Natalie, we had a clause that protected our derivative works from infringement. Since clones could be used to make infringing product, we have to prevent this from occuring. We have the greatest amount to lose if gene pirates have their way."
Neither Natlie Portman's agent or manager could be reached for comment.
to think that there are "property rights" on something that is in everyone of us is luducris. While thier work is important and deserves recognition and compensation but to "own" the rights to something this common is the greatest form of hubris.
NIH sequences and HELA cells
by
QuincyFree
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· Score: 2
If I want the gene sequence to a well-characterised species (i.e. one for which there are molecular genetic studies), I can perform a search through the genome database at The National Center for Biotechnology Information and download the base pair sequence for free, in addition to any other sequences that it is evolutionarily related to.
Needless to say, this is a great benefit to biological work.
Given that all of these sequences were obtained by researchers at various universities and institutes, using equipment that is funded by their own grants, why is it that a company with similar equipment needs the sort of reimbursement we are discussing here?
Moreover, if genome sequence information from Joe Public is used in fruitful biomedical research, will he be reimbursed? The historical record suggests not. HeLa cells, for example, were obtained from a female cancer patient whose name is immortalised in the abbreviation "HeLa". They are a ubiquitous "study organism" in molecular genetic laboratories. But I have yet to hear of recompensation for her estate.
"A quote from their investor information: "To map all 80,000 human genes and find our SNPs, Celera is using Whole Genome Sequencing, a technique pioneered by several of Celera's scientists who were formerly at The Institute for Genomic Research. Using sound waves, a chromosome sample is dispersed into small DNA fragments that can be sequenced, then mapped back together based on their unique base-pair coding. In many cases, a 500-base-pair overlap at the end of a fragment is sufficient to determine that a particular piece of DNA belongs on a particular chromosome.""
Look at that--a perfect description of brute-force assembly of the human genome. I'm certainly glad you corrected me.
FYI, the technique used by CRA is called shotgun sequencing, and it has been debated before, but until recently was thought too resource intensive for use on very large genomes. For some information outside of CRAs investor's information page, you might try these:
Sequencing of H. Influenzae Science, July 28, 1995, V269, pp. 496-512
Shotgun Sequencing of the Human Genome Science, June 5, 1998, V280, pp. 1540-42
(Hmmmm...you'll have to excuse me...I tend to get my misinformation from referred journals rather than corporate websites...)
"In other words, there is a reason that they've been able to do it so fast. They are years ahead of the Human Genome Project."
You know what? You're exactly right--CRA *is* ahead of the HGP, and they are *fast*. That doesn't change the fact that they're using off-the-shelf machinery and publicly available algorithms to do a tedious, well-understood and largely mechanical job.
"Their entire business model is based on selling analysis of the information to drug companies. They already have several large firms signed to use them."
Uh-huh. Go back to CRAs investor's information page and find out how many CRA employees are doing the wet-lab biochemical analysis that will figure out what the genome really means. CRA has hired a few good computational biologists, but these will only get you so far in the world of molecular biology and biochemistry. The real analysis work has to be done by the hordes of laboratory researchers who actually utilize the kind of data were talking about.
So what will CRA do if they don't have lots of these types of researchers? Well, based on CRAs ambiguous business model, my guess is that they're going to package up their sequence data with references to public literature--a la LEXIS/NEXIS. In essence, a repackager of human genome data. I have absolutely no problem with this.
I do have a problem with the way CRA is taking a scorched-earth policy to patenting genes. *This* is the real reason that drug companies have signed up with CRA for early access--they're hoping to get their dirty little mitts on the hot genes in CRAs patent portfolio--and in the process, get an exclusive license agreement for the use of the same. CRA may only patent 300 or so of the thousands of genes they have preliminary patents on, but these 300 will have been carefully picked over by CRA and the drug companies so that no one else gets access to anything of serious value. Now, explain to me how this sort of behavior is supposed to encourage calculated risk and entrepreneurism in the biotech community?
"Why don't you read their investor statements before spouting off about which you know nothing."
I hope you have a nice day too.
-- Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
Err, not to sound rude, but that's bullshit. (/me mounts his soapbox:)
The US does *not* have the best medical system in the world. I believe that honor goes to Canada. And guess what. We've got, gasp, socialized medicine.
I don't know about profit motives and incentives, but all I know is that people in my country don't go bankrupt because they can't pay for dialysis treatments. We aren't denied payment for our treatments from our HMOs because we've got AIDS, or cancer, or multiple sclerosis and aren't expected to live long. We don't have to take out a second mortgage to afford that liver transplant.
I personally know three people who received world-class chemotherapy, and who all make less than $40000 per year. (Two teachers and a call center worker.) Socialized medicine is not a failure when the government involved is truly committed to making it work, and is also accountable to the public. Unfortunately, that combination is lacking in many countries...
Imagine if the U.S. gov't poured a proportional amount of money that Canada does into the creation of a genuine full-scale socialized medical system. I hope it happens in my lifetime, so that I can see you folks down south not get screwed over by your HMO or insurance companies' shareholders.
You might be too late. I was recently notified by Amazon that Carbon based life and processes to sustain it has now been patented by them . . . It will cost my family an extra $45 this year if we have a child, $10 less though if we adopt! Think we'll adopt.
The points are correct, but....
by
smoondog
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· Score: 3
I agree with the original poster on all points. I also argue that there is a difference between in theory and in practice.
It's true that genes are not patentable. In general, though, genes are patented on their (fairly obvious) uses.
Also, to say that someone needs to do something with a sequence to patent is it is almost silly these days. The height one has to jump to get a gene patented really depends on the cost of the patent lawyer.
As to Celera, they haven't been around long. But shotgunning the genome makes them a competiter to the genome project, longstanding or not. They said they were going to do the easy parts of the fly, they did. They say they will do the easy parts of the human, well....
Also I would like to point out that this would not stop anyone from re-doing the research themselves and using the information from their own research in any way shape or form.
Not to be snotty, but "you are right in theory, but..."
In practice, these companies have every intention of trying to protect "their" gene sequences as proprietory. Pharmecutical companies have done more rediculous things and had the courts back them up. Example:
Guy is getting some tests done at a hospital and they find that he has some sort of immunity/protien/useful cell property that could help them develope a treatment. Guy agrees to let them take a cell culture. Research proceeds apace and treatment is developed. Pharmacutical company associated with hospital research department patents treatment and the cell line it came from. Guy who's cells they are sues for ownership of his own cell line, loses. This means that not only does this company own their treatment, they own this guys unique cell line. He cannot choose to cooperate with another hospital so that they can independently develope the treatment and compete.
Now if this one company honestly wants to protect their right to sell info, al la a map maker, while allowing anyone else to independently produce the same info and give it away, that would be great. It would also be completely out of charecter with the history and stated goals of companies outside the Human Genome Project. So forgive us our cynicism.
On a side note, I get sick and tired of hearing about how these companies have to have patents to protect "their" investments. Do you have any idea how much of their research is done with government money, either directly, though "development" tax breaks or partnerships with universities supported by NSA grants? And then they turn around and talk about research costs and that they're a private business that has to make a profit.
Personally, I believe that pharmacutical companies should be given a simple choice. Either you are a private business looking out for your own bottom line and your research costs, in which case you will get no government support, including tax breaks and partnering with any government sponsered research facilities, OR you get all the benifits of societal support that we give pharmacutical and biotech companies in exchange for acceping a modified "public interest" patent on your developments. A Public Interest Patent (PIP) would have a significantly shorter expiration period than standard and would not be enforcable against authenticly convergent research. (insert research companies helping develope an audit proceedure for challenges to authentic convergency here).
If they are going to spout free market retoric to defend making a literal killing on life saving drugs, they should be willing to take their chances in a real free market.
-Kahuna Burger
-- ...will work for Chick tracts...
Ups and Downs of patenting DNA sequences
by
zaius
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· Score: 3
When I first saw this story some years ago, I thought that patenting DNA was one of the dumbest ideas I had ever heard. It would be easy to see how it could harm patients, because either biotech companies would charge massive fees for the use of "their" DNA sequences. That or, by patenting a small sequence of DNA for use studying one gene/disease, you risk also patenting genes causing other diseases, but prevent researchers from investigating that possibility.
On the upside, it makes more sense for major corporations to invest in the process if you allow patents to be issued.
However, on the downside again, by awarding patents you discourage the use of new, innovative techniques to map out DNA sequences. By this I mean that people who can dump massive amounts of resources into sequencing DNA using existing technologies may get results faster than researchers who look for new, faster, or more reliable ways to do the same thing. In the long run, having newer, faster and more reliable ways would be better, in case we ever want to sequence the DNA of other things.
Let's try the corporate mindset described herein in the context of, say, Galileo. Here's what the legal writ-of-800-lb-gorilla would read:
I, Galileo Galilei, citizen of Venice and discoverer of the four moons of Jupiter, hereby claim sole and exclusive property rights to the said Medecan Moons. Persons wishing to view the moons are required to pay license fees to myself, at the Sidereal Messenger Co., Inc, Ltd, etc. Persons taking an Unauthorized Peek at said Moons will be flogged and burnt at the stake, as is common in these times.
How far can science go when the entire basis, i.e., free exchange of ideas and information, is stifled? With no way to exchange information, scientific dialogue shuts down, and progress comes to a halt. Whether this is caused by cultural disapproval of those ideas (i.e., look up WWII Germany and the unreasoning prejudice against Einstein) or by simple greed, the effect is the same.
Einstein, by the way, believed that a physicist (and by extension, any other scientist) should give his ideas away to humanity for free. I think for that among many other reasons (Relativity) he remains the greatest scientist that has ever lived. . .
Begun in 1990, the U.S. Human Genome Project is a 13-year effort coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health.
Aparently, there is no profit motive here... instead, there is a rare glimpse into a government (well, OK, pone government, but I suspect other countries of the same benevolence) actually doing what most people think it should do: support and enhance the common good. Let's stop and savor that for a moment...
Mmmmmmmmm.
OK, that out of the way, I have to admit that in some senses, you're right. For the individual researchers on the project, this is the meal ticket! The mother lode! After working on this baby, they'll be able to get a job anywhere in the industry... as long as their work is recognized. As long as other people can examine it and judge it as worthy. As long as it is - dare I say it? - open.
Look at the Human Genome Project not as an excercise in biotechnology, but a bunch of gene hackers trying to earn a reputation and build something they can be proud of, and I think you'll find a lot of parallels between these folks and the ones who created the foundation of the internet lo so many moons ago.
-- "Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
I think there's a more general point to be made about this, beyond the matter of Gene Patents. When I read these articles, I sense an attitude of "we need to get the profit out of medicine, so we can help more people." This is just ludicrious, and is one of the reasons that socialized medicine is a failure wherever it's tried. There's a reason that the US has by far the best health care in the world, and by far the best medical research in the world.
It's called profit. Sure, we could force CRA to throw away the millions of dollars they've spent in indexing the genome faster than anyone else. But that would not be in the best interest of society, because that sets a precedent that anyone who comes up with an innovation will have it deemed in "society's best interest" and be pressured to put in the public domain. Who needs the abuse?
We are far better off letting the market be efficient, and letting companies like CRA and others do what they do best -- which is innovate in the area of genetics. CRA is not going to hoard the information, they are going to license it.
We will get results far, far faster letting the free market do the work with normal economic incentives, rather than letting a bunch of government researchers take decades to do something with the information.
--
They are not patenting the sequences.
by
Dirtside
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· Score: 4
The patents that have been issued on the human genome are not patents for the sequences themselves; they are patents for processes of testing for the PRESENCE of those sequences. In theory this wouldn't be a problem, except that the patents that are being granted are patents for *ANY PROCESS* that tests for the presence of those sequences, not any particular process. So it's wrong, but not for the reason everyone seems to think.
Also, there are two competing gene projects. One is the Human Genome Project, which is publicly funded and all of whose results are immediately put into the public domain; the other is run (mostly) by a private corporation called Celera Genomics, partnered with other companies. They're the ones getting the patents, which hopefully will be thrown out.
-- "Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Exactly. Now the REAL concern here is ...
by
P_Simm
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· Score: 4
The article discusses Celera and the HGP sharing information on the maps they've made, so as to build on each other's information and finish their projects earlier.
Now, if Celera gives full disclosure of their databases to the HGP, and the HGP uses that information to refine their own map, and the HGP's map is given out to researchers for FREE, then what does Celera have left to gain financially from their work? This is the real concern - for Celera to profit from this initiative, they by definition HAVE to retain some information from HGP, or else get the HGP to agree to some form of non-disclosure.
This article had nothing to do with genome patents (although if they're out there, they should be a concern of course). It's a scenario where corporate collaboration with a non-profit project could end up forcing the non-profit group to have limits placed on what information they can release, and how fully they can benefit the public.
--
You know what to do with the HELLO.
Help create an open-source world...
After all, didn't those guys INVENT the human genome?
What? They didn't? They discovered it then, huh? That counts for something...
Didn't do that either? You mean all they did was make a record of something that's been around for millions of years, and that we've known about for most of a century?
Sure, that discovery is worth something. Not sure what... A six pack of beer maybe...
The last time a gene patenting issue came up, I had an email exchange with Hemos encouraging him to describe the situation more accurately in his postings. Now we get another story and all 13 nonzero comments, as of this writing, have the same misconceptions about gene patenting. So let's try this again:
Genes are not patentable - applications based on a gene sequence are
No, no one can patent blue eyes and charge you a royalty fee
No, you can't just sequence a gene and get patent rights on it. You have to do something with it. The standard of "doing something" needs to be defined better and probably set higher, but the idea that somebody will "own the genome" is false.
What is patentable is identifying the role of a sequence in a disease and charging a royalty for diagnostics or therapies based on that sequence
The fact that the article describes Celera as a "longstanding" competitor to the Genome Project makes me question the quality of the journalism there. Of course, so does the fact that it appeared in Wired.
Maybe we can get an Everything listing to explain these things in genome-related stories, instead of the same misconceptions popping up every time.
I was of the understanding that the human genome project was funded and overseen by the United States Department of Energy? Doesn't this more or less nullify patenting of that information?
How can you patent the mapping of the human genome? That's like patenting the mapping of the North American continent. Perhaps you can copyright a specific map that you've designed and drawn of the continent, but patent it?
I can understand patenting a specific process they may have used, which may be unique, to uncover and map the human genomes, but not the map itself. If they copyrighted the map, though, I would understand. That would also leave it open to other people and organizations to produce their own maps -- just like countless people have produced and released maps of North America. None of them are breaking any patent or copyright law by doing so.
I do not see any right given here beyond copyrighting this information. And doing so would not prevent anyone in the world from creating new technologies and treatments with this information. If they used this information, they would need to pay for it -- just like I would have to pay for acopy of Rand Mcnally's Road Atlas if I wanted to plan a trip across the country. McNally neither owns the country or the right to make maps of the country. But they do own a copyright on the individual map I am using to make my trip.
I would think that anyone who wants to make their own map of the human genome would be welcome to. They could then copyright or GPL their map -- or whatever else they wish to do with it.
I admit that this project brings amazing information and possibilities within our grasp, but we all must also admit that this was no trivial thing. This is a massive project which has taken massive funding and hundreds of man-years (minimally) to accomplish. If this was a private endeavor, it should be that private orgnaization's right to distribute and limit the information however they wish. If, however, the project was largely a public/government undertaking (as has always been my understanding) then this information needs to be freely available without restriction. --- icq:2057699 seumas.com
Knees are jerking quickly, I'm sure, but people need to understand that there are some rights here that are of concern, but they are not what you think. Not rights to the human genome itself, but rights to a particular map of the human genome.
Today, maps are copyrighted, and for good reason. If I go out and spend millions surveying an area so that I can print an accurate map, I should be protected by copyright. Another person shouldn't be allowed to xerox my maps and then undercut my price. I deserve to be compensated for my investment. I don't own the information the maps are based on (the locations of cities and such). I own the my particular collection of it. While no own can legally copy my maps, they can go survey the area themselves and produce their own map. I suspect most people would find that eminantly fair. The person who does the work gets the money.
This is really no different. If Cerela creates a map of the human genome, they deserve the right to copyright their database of the human genome. That is only fair. However, they do not deserve the right to copyright the human genome itself. And, AFAIK, they aren't trying to.
In other words, if you want a copy of what Celera did, you should have to pay them. That is only fair. If you don't want to pay them, then you are perfectly free to extract your own DNA and create your own map of the human genome. They can't stop you. You can then sell your database, which you can certainly copyright yourself.
This is no different from geographical maps. No one "owns" the arrangement of geographical features in the world. Lots of mapmakers own their own particular collection of data concerning those features. That's the difference.
Perhaps a better example: If I write a book that describes the Linux kernel in detail, I can certainly copyright that description and charge whatever the hell I want for it. No one, not even Linus, can stop me. However, what I've copyrighted is my description of the Linux kernel, not the Linux kernel itself. This is no different. What Celera is talking about is not copyrighting the human genome, but copyrighting their description of the human genome.
Slashdot Mirror
(rant)
One of the things that is getting very tiresome about Slashdork is the misapplication of the GPL. The GPL was designed as a software license. If you are talking about applying it to music, graphic arts, or genome mapping, you are misapplying it. It also makes you sound like a narrow-minded frothing zealot.
There's nothing wrong with wanting looser, more consumer-friendly licenses on intellectual property, but shouting "GPL IT!" everytime copyrightable material is discussed is just lame.
Turn off your computer, go to a symphony, catch a play, read a book, and realize that the whole damn world doesn't revolve around Free Software vs. Amazon Patents. Ok?
(rant over. thanks.)
This is most definitely not about copyrighting maps. This is about filings for patents on DNA sequences that represent putative genes with putative functions, based on no experimental evidence whatsoever. Celera filed 6,500 of these in October (see Washington Post article), and my guess is that the number has increased since then. There is a good reason for the 'squabbling' between public and private ventures. Patenting DNA sequence is absurd and will most certainly be a hindrance to the research community!
This is a huge, and explosive ethical question. Currently, medical agencies are able to justify denying certain costly treatments because the cost of the treatment generally stems from the actual cost of doing the treatment. That is, a liver transplant costs $1 million because it takes that much effort to transplant a liver.
The only case where this is not the case is in pharmaceuticals. And there, it is primarily the amortized cost of tremendous amounts of R&D that drives the prices up. (This is really an aside, but recently South Africa told several US drug companies to bug off regarding certain AIDS medications and started making them without a license. Bottom line: half their population has AIDS, and they can't afford the drugs. The drug companies tried to sue, but then got smart and relented when they saw which way the wind blew. The pharmaceutical situation will endure in the US only as long as the few people obviously dying from lack of drugs are from marginalized segments of the society.)
The case we are heading to is the one where a heart surgeon will be operating on a patient who cannot afford to license a certain technique, and he will have to choose between disregarding patent law or risking his patient's life. This could also eaily come up in the genome issue.
The problem is that our society does not have a clear ethic describing the value of human life. This is evident all over the place: the abortion debate, the assisted suicide debate, even the "violent video games" debate. What is the value of man, and how great a crime is it kill one? What value is life compared to freedom? What about economic freedom? Is buying a drug company executive a sports car really worth a single life?
My point is not some kind of Marxism. My point is that we need to be asking these questions.
On what basis can we construct an ethical system for our society? What is the underlying principal? Who defines right?
--
-- Slashdot sucks.
It's true that genes are not patentable. In general, though, genes are patented on their (fairly obvious) uses.
/.'er grumbling -- the reason I became addicted to this site years ago was that when a story was posted, a slew of knowledgeable people would put it into context. Now the discussion for any story with more than 50 posts is 60% zealots shouting the party line at each other and 35% grits and Natalie Portman. And a comment like "to think that there are "property rights" on something that is in everyone of us is luducris." gets marked up to +3!)
I agree that there's a problem here. In fact, I'd say that, next to the privacy issue, the level of advance required for a patent is the biggest social issue in genomics. There's a definite need for thoughtful discussion and for lobbying. I just don't see how comments like "Actually, these people are making Amazon.com look like amateurs. DNA sequences are patented even though the patenter has no idea what the sequence does. It's worse than software patents." contribute to that.
(If you'll excuse some crotchety old-timer
As to Celera, they haven't been around long. But shotgunning the genome makes them a competiter to the genome project, longstanding or not. They said they were going to do the easy parts of the fly, they did They say they will do the easy parts of the human, well....
My point about "longstanding" was that the Wired article was superficial and vague, most notably in their description of a company that's, what, two years old? Incidentally, their claim to have shotgunned the fly sequence is typical Celera BS. They relied on a physical map from the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project for their assembly. As for the human sequence, as you say, well... Hopefully there will be an equitable compromise reached.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
This was part of my point, though. First, I don't believe that you can patent the database. Copyright it, perhaps -- but not patent it (you could patent the process by which the information for the database was gathered, perhaps). Further, Celera could certainly copyright their database. The Genome Project could copyright theirs. They could both copyright the compilation of data.
You would end up with three databases and three seperate copyrights. Each owning a copyright to their own data and a third joint-copyright of the joined data. We see this all the time elsewhere.
I think they are hung-up on the fact that this was such an incredibly massive undertaking and to do it again would break almost anyone's bank account. So copyrighting the data will still give a large amount of wealth and power to whoever owns it. (A lab at OHSU wants to look at information that may help them enhance their treatment of heart disease? Great, fork over the bucks to access our database(s).)
I can understand the conflict if a large portion of Celera's data was directly attributed to the Genome Project's work itself and was not data Celera obtained by its own work (or under a co-operative contract between themselves and those running the Genome Project). The article itself did not seem to contain any specific information with regard to exactly who acquired what part of the data and how, not to mention what any original agreement may have been.
---
icq:2057699
seumas.com
Hey, this is a project which will not only greatly advance the medical profession and lead to vast improvements in the quality of human wellbeing and discoveries of new treatments for incurable diseases, but bring in fantastic profits for hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry as well - doctors should have no say in the matter.
Chuck - who's genetic makeup is protected by copyright law and international treaty. Any unauthorised use or reproduction (?!) may result in severe civil and criminal penalties and will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible under the law. This genetic material is presented "as is" without warrenty, express or implied, as to merchantability or fitness for survival.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
And maybe these genome reserchers understood that...
I can see the fnords!
...is that both the HGP and Celera are mapping the genome of a small, homogenous population of people. In order to be really useful in the medical field, they'll need ways to sequence the genes of individual patients quickly and cheaply. However, as I understand it, Celera is using a `shotgun' approach to sequencing, i.e. chop up whole strands of DNA, sequence the bits and try to fit them together like some demented jigsaw puzzle that has overlapping, redundant pieces. This method dispenses with the time-consuming finishing process which would result in high-quality sequence data. In essense, Celera is making a rough draft, hence the comment that their data is more valuable when combined with HGP data.
Now, this method is good for getting a rough-draft sequence done quickly, but doesn't really apply to the goal I mentioned above: quickly and cheaply sequencing genes from individual patients. This may be why Celera is so hung up on protecting their database; if they haven't developed any quick, cheap, accurate sequencing methods, the database is their only asset! (At least in terms of the human genome.)
If this is so, I really have no sympathy for them. If this is not so, somebody please correct me.
My father-in-law was one such case.
I'm sorry for your loss. My mother died of lung cancer also.
"If we want fast development of new drugs, abolish the FDA and get the gov out of the Human Genome business. "
I think you have a perspective that is untainted by history. The creation of the FDA around the turn of the century (Although the FDA will not bear that name until 1930) was one of several responses to the appalling state of the pharmaceutical and food industries that preceeded it.
In those days, adulteration of food with sometimes dangerous dyes, preservatives, and fillers was extremely common (Look up Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" and the history of "Swill Milk"), and the pharmaceutical market was flooded with quack cures and patent medicines whose main ingredients were often alcohol or laudanum.
A number of laws were passed in response to this situation (in particular Roosevelt's Food and Drugs Act). The FDA began as an agency that provided chemical analysis and support for these laws. It quickly gained an international reputation for effectiveness, and became the model for many similar agencies in other developed countries.
The FDA is a rarity in government, an agency that is both highly competent and beneficial. I happen to work as a scientist in the commercial pharmaceutical industry, and the FDA regulates oversees us very tightly, both in research and production environments. It generates mounds of paperwork and adsorbs lots of extra time and labor--but this is a *good* thing. Thanks to the FDA, you can be assured that medicines you buy have been tested for purity and potency both before (materials), during, and after manufacture, and that there's a full trail of accountabiliy for the both the end product, the materials, and everyone who handled them. Believe me, few companies would take these quality control steps if it weren't for the FDA.
I do think that fast-track development needs to be extended for certain severe diseases. In the case of AIDS, it was not just the existence of a powerful lobbying group that allowed fast-track to occur. It was also the complete absence of any conventional treatment for the disease, coupled with a 100% progression to terminal illness that did it, and the FDA does tend to be more lenient with trials for other 100% fatal diseases.
The main arguement against extension to something like cancer is that there exists a conventional treatment that has some effectiveness, even if it's not a whole lot. The problem is, the majority of experimental medicines are not better than conventional treatment. The majority are worse, and nobody ever hears about the failures unless they are spectacular--and that's the problem with "Kill or Cure".
If you can't copyright the alphabet you shouldn't be able to patent the genome of any living thing.
I can see a patent for extinct animals, but for creatures that still walk the earth, it's laughable.
If they can get a patent on the human genome, what's to stop them from imposing a license fee on every birth?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I have been doing a lot of thinking lately on the subject of patents and copyrights and am quickly coming to the conclusion that we are seeing the real Johnny Mnemonic right now, albeit without Keanu Reeves, thank goodness.
Think about it - on one side we have MegaCorp patenting everything under the sun or being really assholeish with copyrights (played by Bezos and Valente) On the other we have the good Dr. and the hacker (played by Henry Rollins and Ice-T) trying to get the information out to everyone.
Instead of doing good for humanity, MegaCorp holds back because they are making more money by selling something to give relief instead of the cure.
When is this "everything for a buck" mentality going to stop? I have no problem with folks making money, but this is all just getting too insane for humanity's good.
Really, the only thing we are missing from the whole Johnny Mnemonic thing is a bunch of gun toting hitmen out to get JM... but then again they are here - in the form of lawyers.
U.S. Government employees can obtain patents. You may be thinking of copyrights. In general, material produced by the government can't be copyrighted. Besides, can you talk the original author into registering the copyright?
[cut to court scene where Celera is prosecuting someone for infringing on their DNA patents]
Prosecutor : So you see, your Honor. This person is very obviously "digesting" food. We discovered and patented how this process works on a fundamental level, and are trying to recieve recompense for our studies.
Defendant : but, but (tummy growls)
Posecutor : That'll be another five dollars.
Defendant's Public Defender : Your honor, I'd like to call a special witness to establish prior art.
Judge : Okee-dokey
Bailiff : The defendants call GOD to the stand.
Bailiff : Place your hand on the Bible, Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, uh, God.
GOD : I AM THE TRUTH
Bailiff : Good enough for me.
Defendant's Lawyer : So you say you knew about this whole DNA thing years ago?
GOD : YES, BILLIONS OF YEARS IN THE PLANNING STAGES, BILLIONS OF YEARS IN THE GROWING STAGES AND MILLIONS OF YEARS OF FIELD TESTING.
DL : Yet, in all that time you failed to get a patent on your creation?
GOD : PLEASE REFER TO INTER-DIMENSIONAL DOCUMENT #F45369 DETAILING THE CREATION AND EVOLUTION OF A SENTIENT SPECIES.
DL : Umm, all I see is a bright light..
(enough of this, time for lunch...patenting parts of people is stupid, really stupid. "Owning" existing genetic code is similarly so. If they actually invent something, maybe, but just finding something and thereby owning it...they get to name it, but owning it, NO)
--
+&x
Say hello to zMac.
Seems to me, the key to this story is "Our sole concern, the only concern we have, is that our data would be used by a competing database company," Gilman said. "We want to protect the database from being pirated," he added. All they are looking for is clear terms of use. They are allowing that they don't mind sharing and contributing etc, but they do want to control who can access this information and possibly how much access they have. And by doing that, they stay in business.
It doesn't seem that they are trying to screw anyone else. It is possible that another company could obtain their information and cut them out of the market. Not good when you have spent a few million dollars.
Sig-"Out beyond fields of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there." Jelaluddin Rumi
I have my software patent:
A sequence of carrier molecules that can be used to replicate software through biological life forms.
As a supporting patent, we are also patenting the description of geographical areas by reprenting them in a virtualised form on a compressed cellolose subtrate using a biologically based light sensor descibed in patent 1 as a reader and chemical compounds that rely on the differential reflection of electro-magnetic radiation to encode
the virtualised geography onto the substrate.
In regards to patent 1, we intend on charging an imodest royalty whenever licenced users engage in sexual intercourse. Patent 2 will be vigorously enforced, even though our only licenced application for the forseable future is a 1956 AAA roadmap of Bumfukt AZ.
X.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
In terms of patents (not directly related to this story) I do think that some patents might be ok, if they represent a new, genetically engineered sequence not originally found in nature.
The cake is a pie
Again, it depends on whether we are talking about patents or copyrights. If they copyright a set of information that includes the sequence for XYZ, they cannot prevent anyone from publishing that sequence unless it was originally derived from them. Anyone can get their own sequencing equipment, sequence the gene, and do whatever the hell they want.
This is very different from a patent, which would prevent anyone from using the sequence. I am nearly positive they cannot patent an existing sequence, only a new one not found in nature. (At least, I hope so.)
Anyway, patents expire in something like twenty years, not eighty. It is copyrights that expire only after an ungodly long time.
The cake is a pie
The cake is a pie
While capitalism does tend to lead to efficiency in many types of markets, it doesn't work in all markets.
...) Therefore we have government for defense, and we have monopolies (patents and copyright) granted for creative works.
One failures in capitalism are in defense-spending. An army is a very ineffecient use of resources. Capitalism also tends to not create incentives to create goods where the initial cost is large, but the marginal cost is very small, like creative works. (music, software, film,
The free market also assumes that there is more than one source of any particular good, and that the sources are competing with each other. (No price fixing, collusion, or monopolistic practices.) This doesn't always hold true in the face of patents and copyrights.
The problem with the automated patenting of genes is that there cannot be competetion; patents are temporary monopolies. And because of CRA's squatting on large tracts of the geonome, they will be retarding research. The geonome is a large book in a cryptic language. CRA is getting a monopoly on pages, just because they transcribed them, while the people who translate those pages into discoveries, cures, and knowledge may get very little.
Also, the monopoly granted through patents isn't coming from the free market, and it won't be 'fixed' by the free market either. A free market doesn't have patents. In a pure free market the moment an innovation becomes public, it becomes public domain and free for all to use. Is this the free market that you want?
Patents and copyrights and government exist to overcome the shortcomings in the free market and to make civilization more efficient. Sometimes they fail at that, and new laws have to be made to try to restore efficiency.
[Personally, I feel that patents and copyright are OK if they're properly allowed. Patents should be allowed on those creations which actually contribute to civilization and knowledge. Copyright is OK if the term is a reasonable length, I like 20 years (with a 20 year extension). This was the origional term.) By granting patents for trivial inventions and granting copyrights for a hundred years (after death), you cheapen them for all.]
Fleming put the patent for penicillin into the public domain, resulting in a several-year delay until it got to patients: without a guaranteed profit, no company could afford the development and testing expenses.
That was in the 1940s, before we had massive regulation by the FDA. Now it costs $500M to develop a new drug and get it past the regulatory hurdles. --> the drug industry looks like a regulated monopoly or the high-end military supply industry.
If we want fast development of new drugs, abolish the FDA and get the gov out of the Human Genome business.
Compare progress of AIDS and lung cancer. AIDS had a pressure group to make the FDA relax regulations on experimental drugs. The 'fast track' approach killed people, but progress has been very rapid. With more absolute $s put into lung cancer (a simpler disease, I believe) people are still dying untreated and/or while participating in safety trials for the many new drugs becoming available.
My father-in-law was one such case. "No ill effect from the doses in the safety trial. Great, now go home and die." He did, within about 6 weeks.
"Kill or cure" would have been a choice available to him in the absence of a bureaucracy.
Lew
"The Constitution, the WHOLE Constitution, and nothing but the CONSTITUTION."
I wonder if we should get them tattooed with a "(c) ..." just to make sure.
Of course we'll gift them with their own copyright when they hit 18 and they can do what they like with it.
I guess we have to send a sample of our works to the copyright office .... but I wonder if many voodoo practioners work there ....
DNA sequences are patented even though the patenter has no idea what the sequence does.
Sort of. Patenters have to provide some explanation of what it does, and a specific description of its application. But they can be pretty vauge, and even incorrect from time to time -- patent examiners have no clue what they're reading.
For example, CCR5 and CXCCR4, genes that code for chemotactic receptors targetted by HIV, were both granted patents a few days ago. The patent specifically describes how the receptors interact with chemotactic factors, but barely mentions HIV. Still, any anti-AIDS drugs that blocks CCR binding will still be subject to the patent.
Since the scientific method is based on replication to achieve greater confidence, and greater confidence corresponds to added information, the quantification needs to include metrics on how much information is added by replication measurements, and reward those replications as well -- albiet at a lower rate since less information accumulates per measurement replication.
This would have handled all sorts of things such as environmental monitoring, human genome sequencing, adding significant digits onto known physical constants, etc.
The value of something like this is that it cleanly separates the role of public and private sectors and gets government out of detailed analyses of who is more likely to succeed in their proposed research efforts. Of course the primary reason the legislation wasn't passed into law is because it gets government out of detailed analyses of who is more likely to succeed in theirproposed research efforts -- guvvies just love to "pick winners" because that is power.
Seastead this.
Genes are not patentable - applications based on a gene sequence are
:-)
False. Or rather, ought to be true, but false in practice. Consider, if you will, this press release announcing a patent on a key HIV cellular receptor. Nominally, the patent does cover "techniques" related to it, but the techniques listed on the front page are all just references to standard molecular experiments that can be performed when you know a gene. The basic argument seems to be that the gene is a process for producing a protein, and is therefore allowed. (View front page of patent at IBM.)
It's begun. I think the patent system is great, but genes and software (the two new and rapidly-growing fields) are not handled properly. Too many people stand to gain from the current system for it to be fixed. IMHO, the correct thing to do would be to take a patented gene (the sequence must be disclosed in the patent, and all you need is that sequence, a lab, and a few grad students...) and come up with some amazing cure. Announce it to the world. State exactly how to use it. The patent-holder will sue. You then get to go before a court and explain that BigGeneCorp is holding back treatment that could save thousands. Eventually, you will go to the Supreme Court, which will probably throw away all such patents because they're secretly a bunch of libertarians. It'll cost millions and take a decade, but genes will be free again.
There's also a simpler but less powerful attack. This patent covers one sequence of nucleotides. Most human proteins can be encoded by more than one sequence. Take this sequence and find a spot that (according to computer modeling) allows polymorphisms. Express that new protein to be sure it works just as well. Now patent that and make the patent freely available. This can, in theory, be done for almost any patented gene. (This is a business model. You may use this business model which I have just invented if you do not attempt to profit from it. If you try to profit from it, I will patent your grandmother and have you killed for infringement.
Alik
There are a couple of issues to gene patents
that aren't being addressed here. (I'm generally against the patenting of genetic material, especially when someone patents a sequence and doesn't give credit to the 30 researchers who spent their lives researching that sequence's product.)
Those issues are: How are sequencers going to protect their businesses. This isn't like open source where some 25 year old can do it in the evenings. This costs bucks. If they can't patent the sequences they wont *publish* the sequences limiting research on the sequences. They, in general, don't want to limit research, they want to make money. How do big public genome projects get done? Through government funding, which is certainly not going to sequence everything...
Also, If a gene is patented, often times it is to protect the researcher's interest in that sequence out of fear that someone else (like Venter's Celera) will do it for them. Personally, I think this is driving a good part of patents today.
Protection of intellectual property is important in biotech. These companies cost millions to start up and run. They run for years without a product. Like I said, it really isn't much like startup internet companies being started by a couple of people working evenings and weekends. Lab space is expensive, techs and employees for biotechs often start at higher wages than internet co's and require a lot more resources.
-- Moondog
First of all, while I'll admit investor information is not a perfect source of information, it isn't normally complete marketing crap due to FTC regulations. That said...
FYI, the technique used by CRA is called shotgun sequencing, and it has been debated before, but until recently was thought too resource intensive for use on very large genomes.
My understanding was that that is one of the innovations that CRA has brought to the table. Not just the resource intensiveness, but many thought that assembly wouldn't be possible using that technique.
According to this New York Times Article, CRA has also developed computer software to solve the assembly problem.
Look, the point of all this is that you claim that there is nothing new that CRA is doing except spending money, and that is simply not true. As the saying goes, if it were that easy, everyone would do it.
There is certainly a lot of questions still surrounding CRA's business model, but I think you're being a little hard on them.
CRA may only patent 300 or so of the thousands of genes they have preliminary patents on, but these 300 will have been carefully picked over by CRA and the drug companies so that no one else gets access to anything of serious value. Now, explain to me how this sort of behavior is supposed to encourage calculated risk and entrepreneurism in the biotech community?
For the same reason that we allow drug patents... it's not that easy, and it's very expensive to do analysis and produce drugs. The only way it can happen is to allow a drug company to recoup the investment in discovering, testing and producing the drug. Otherwise, you have a drug company investing 100s of millions to develop a drug, only to see it manufactured overseas by anyone and everyone. That does not foster innovation.
--
You don't know what you're talking about.
You think CRA innovates? I've got news--they're using off-the-shelf machinery to do a brute-force assembly of the human genome.
A quote from their investor information: "To map all 80,000 human genes and find our SNPs, Celera is using Whole Genome Sequencing, a technique pioneered by several of Celera's scientists who were formerly at The Institute for Genomic Research. Using sound waves, a chromosome sample is dispersed into small DNA fragments that can be sequenced, then mapped back together based on their unique base-pair coding. In many cases, a 500-base-pair overlap at the end of a fragment is sufficient to determine that a particular piece of DNA belongs on a particular chromosome."
In other words, there is a reason that they've been able to do it so fast. They are years ahead of the Human Genome Project.
First off, CRA isn't *doing* squat with the sequence data they collect. They are neither equipped nor staffed to do the science that will determine the function of the genes that they sequence. What CRA *is* doing is what pundits call "prospecting the genome." I call it genome squatting.
Why don't you read their investor statements before spouting off about which you know nothing. Their entire business model is based on selling analysis of the information to drug companies. They already have several large firms signed to use them.
--
In what way "a failure wherever it's tried"?
In most countries, there are long waiting lists for elective surgery, and sometimes even for major surgeries. Advanced medical equipment like CAT scanners are rare, and again there are waiting lists. There is a reason that people who can afford it come to the US for treatment.
But you will be treated even if you have no money and happen to get sick or have an accident.
Same in the US. Anyone can walk into a hospital and get emergency treatment by law.
But why should everything have a price? Especially those innovations which are good for everyone.
Because that's what works. Innovations happen because someone works very hard to create them, and the best incentive to innovation is giving someone a path to a better life through hard work.
I mean, why was agriculture in the Soviet Union such a disaster, when food is even more important than medical care? You would think that farmers would recognize their obligation to feed the country, and work their hardest. Well, it didn't happen that way. There was no point in working hard, because hard work or easy work gave you exactly the same day-to-day result.
--
I wonder if the researchers on the Genome project use Gnome because they're almost spelled the same... and they're also very smart people, and anyone with half a brain and linux with x uses Gnome, of course :)
Mike Roberto
- roberto@apk.net
-- AOL IM: MicroBerto
Berto
I've got some news for you: Accidents and diseases is not something that just happens to people who "don't run [their] life right"
Life is not fair. Noone can afford treatment for a serious condition without some form of insurance. I actually believe that the government is better suited to handle that insurance, since it is in their best interest to keep me well, voting for them and paying my taxes.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
The HGI has been around for decades. It's common knowledge amongst anyone with half an ear for science news, (or who've played Civ II) and I can't believe that Celera's founders had never heard of it.
So, Celera is taking new technology and intends to finish the job faster. And probably cheaper. Which catechism insists rules out "better." But what they want to do is claim the arena. The Wired article describes Celera's attempt to collaborate with HGI in such a way that it would prevent the Genome's public release. And, I'm certain, their intention has been to manage this one way or another since their inception.
So, without actually doing anything new or useful, Celera intends to own the world market on the Human Genome for the life of their IP (rather than the estimated two year margin between their completion and the probably superior public release in 2003). And IP being what it is nowadays, that's likely to be much too long.
IMO, this is a key example of the Way Things Are failing We The People, and Us the Species. Between this and Palm Inc. expanding by 57.5 points on its first day (when 3Com is worth dirt in comparison, although they're the vast majority stockholder), I begin to wonder a> when the mainspring is going to snap and kill somebody and b> when and with what we can replace all this Victorian crap we have underpinning everything.
IP is just rude.
Is there any torture so subl
Answer: NO.
In the book Shamans, Software, and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society , the author, James Boyle, discusses this very issue. An excerpt from the beginning of the book:
The doctors made millions; the unwitting cell-provider received nothing and was told he had given up his rights to his own genetic material to the doctors. Be very afraid.
- tokengeekgrrl
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions
I can't even be sure that you were implying this, but people should know that the fact that scientific research in nessecarily tied into "profit" is NOT because all scientists are inherently greedy (although I can't say about Craig Venter, to be sure...)
I am a research biologist working right now at a NON-PROFIT research organization, and I will tell you that the costs of research are so enormous and prohibitive that government funding NEVER covers it, even in such "sexy" useful fields as genomics. For example, the cost of creating and keeping a colony of research mice for a year often runs as high as $60,000 or more for each laboratory, which consists of a principal investigator, maybe a couple of post docs, some technicians and (cheap) graduate students. This does not include salaries, rent on lab space, equipment cost (both initial and maintainence - average maintainance contract over $5,000/year per machine) reagent cost, computers, software, etc, etc. Therefore kissing up to corporate monies, or BECOMING coporate monies, as Craig Venter has done, is almost always neccassary, but not because the biologists are trying to make it that way.
People like Venter that establish their own biotech companies to make the big bucks should not immediately be villified either; as the process of becoming a research scientist is often as hard or harder (and time-consuming) as becoming a medical doctor, and most of us don't mind that they get the big bucks because we know they've worked hard and continue to do so. However, staying in non-profit academic research, while often more respected, does not get you any sort of equivalent job security (unless you can fight your way to tenure) or salary. Most of the people here that do create something new and patentable WANT to patent it, often for the money, but again I don't think that wanting to be rewarded for your work in a capitalist society is neccesarily evil.
This is not to say that I think scientists SHOULD be patenting sequences that they have no current use for, and do not even know yet whether they are introns ("throw-away" or structural parts of the chromosomes) or exons (genes), let alone what they do. If you come up with a novel assay, procedure, or something else with a gene you have sequenced, fine - patent that use. But patenting sequences themselves (that you have not personally created, which can be done) is 'patently' (ha!) deplorable.
This isn't even remotely true. There are many projects which are financed for profitable gain. But, the vast majority of basic research is done for scientific and societal reasons. It is not true on the funding or on the individual level that it's done for profit motive. On the funding level, the government and universities don't fund particle physics research for profit, clearly. And, on the individual level, physicists get paid bumpkus compared to what they could be making elsewhere. Case in point: I left a software consulting job paying mucho dinero, with plenty of stock options, to come back to grad school. I can assure you profit motive had nothing to do with it.
If this research wasn't being financed by corporate entities, it would still get done, it would just get done much more slowly.
* mild mannered physics grad student by day *
* mild mannered physics grad student by day *
* daring code hacker by night *
http://www.silent-tristero.com
to think that there are "property rights" on something that is in everyone of us is luducris. While thier work is important and deserves recognition and compensation but to "own" the rights to something this common is the greatest form of hubris.
If I want the gene sequence to a well-characterised species (i.e. one for which there are molecular genetic studies), I can perform a search through the genome database at The National Center for Biotechnology Information and download the base pair sequence for free, in addition to any other sequences that it is evolutionarily related to.
Needless to say, this is a great benefit to biological work.
Given that all of these sequences were obtained by researchers at various universities and institutes, using equipment that is funded by their own grants, why is it that a company with similar equipment needs the sort of reimbursement we are discussing here?
Moreover, if genome sequence information from Joe Public is used in fruitful biomedical research, will he be reimbursed? The historical record suggests not. HeLa cells, for example, were obtained from a female cancer patient whose name is immortalised in the abbreviation "HeLa". They are a ubiquitous "study organism" in molecular genetic laboratories. But I have yet to hear of recompensation for her estate.
Look at that--a perfect description of brute-force assembly of the human genome. I'm certainly glad you corrected me.
FYI, the technique used by CRA is called shotgun sequencing, and it has been debated before, but until recently was thought too resource intensive for use on very large genomes. For some information outside of CRAs investor's information page, you might try these:
Sequencing of H. Influenzae
Science, July 28, 1995, V269, pp. 496-512
Shotgun Sequencing of the Human Genome
Science, June 5, 1998, V280, pp. 1540-42
(Hmmmm...you'll have to excuse me...I tend to get my misinformation from referred journals rather than corporate websites...)
"In other words, there is a reason that they've been able to do it so fast. They are years ahead of the Human Genome Project."
You know what? You're exactly right--CRA *is* ahead of the HGP, and they are *fast*. That doesn't change the fact that they're using off-the-shelf machinery and publicly available algorithms to do a tedious, well-understood and largely mechanical job.
"Their entire business model is based on selling analysis of the information to drug companies. They already have several large firms signed to use them."
Uh-huh. Go back to CRAs investor's information page and find out how many CRA employees are doing the wet-lab biochemical analysis that will figure out what the genome really means. CRA has hired a few good computational biologists, but these will only get you so far in the world of molecular biology and biochemistry. The real analysis work has to be done by the hordes of laboratory researchers who actually utilize the kind of data were talking about.
So what will CRA do if they don't have lots of these types of researchers? Well, based on CRAs ambiguous business model, my guess is that they're going to package up their sequence data with references to public literature--a la LEXIS/NEXIS. In essence, a repackager of human genome data. I have absolutely no problem with this.
I do have a problem with the way CRA is taking a scorched-earth policy to patenting genes. *This* is the real reason that drug companies have signed up with CRA for early access--they're hoping to get their dirty little mitts on the hot genes in CRAs patent portfolio--and in the process, get an exclusive license agreement for the use of the same. CRA may only patent 300 or so of the thousands of genes they have preliminary patents on, but these 300 will have been carefully picked over by CRA and the drug companies so that no one else gets access to anything of serious value. Now, explain to me how this sort of behavior is supposed to encourage calculated risk and entrepreneurism in the biotech community?
"Why don't you read their investor statements before spouting off about which you know nothing."
I hope you have a nice day too.
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
Err, not to sound rude, but that's bullshit.
(/me mounts his soapbox:)
The US does *not* have the best medical system in the world. I believe that honor goes to Canada. And guess what. We've got, gasp, socialized medicine.
I don't know about profit motives and incentives, but all I know is that people in my country don't go bankrupt because they can't pay for dialysis treatments. We aren't denied payment for our treatments from our HMOs because we've got AIDS, or cancer, or multiple sclerosis and aren't expected to live long. We don't have to take out a second mortgage to afford that liver transplant.
I personally know three people who received world-class chemotherapy, and who all make less than $40000 per year. (Two teachers and a call center worker.) Socialized medicine is not a failure when the government involved is truly committed to making it work, and is also accountable to the public. Unfortunately, that combination is lacking in many countries...
Imagine if the U.S. gov't poured a proportional amount of money that Canada does into the creation of a genuine full-scale socialized medical system. I hope it happens in my lifetime, so that I can see you folks down south not get screwed over by your HMO or insurance companies' shareholders.
(/me gets off his soapbox.)
You might be too late.
I was recently notified by Amazon that Carbon based life and processes to sustain it has now been patented by them . . .
It will cost my family an extra $45 this year if we have a child, $10 less though if we adopt! Think we'll adopt.
I agree with the original poster on all points. I also argue that there is a difference between in theory and in practice.
It's true that genes are not patentable. In general, though, genes are patented on their (fairly obvious) uses.
Also, to say that someone needs to do something with a sequence to patent is it is almost silly these days. The height one has to jump to get a gene patented really depends on the cost of the patent lawyer.
As to Celera, they haven't been around long. But shotgunning the genome makes them a competiter to the genome project, longstanding or not. They said they were going to do the easy parts of the fly, they did. They say they will do the easy parts of the human, well....
-- Moondog
Not to be snotty, but "you are right in theory, but..."
In practice, these companies have every intention of trying to protect "their" gene sequences as proprietory. Pharmecutical companies have done more rediculous things and had the courts back them up. Example:
Guy is getting some tests done at a hospital and they find that he has some sort of immunity/protien/useful cell property that could help them develope a treatment. Guy agrees to let them take a cell culture. Research proceeds apace and treatment is developed. Pharmacutical company associated with hospital research department patents treatment and the cell line it came from. Guy who's cells they are sues for ownership of his own cell line, loses. This means that not only does this company own their treatment, they own this guys unique cell line. He cannot choose to cooperate with another hospital so that they can independently develope the treatment and compete.
Now if this one company honestly wants to protect their right to sell info, al la a map maker, while allowing anyone else to independently produce the same info and give it away, that would be great. It would also be completely out of charecter with the history and stated goals of companies outside the Human Genome Project. So forgive us our cynicism.
On a side note, I get sick and tired of hearing about how these companies have to have patents to protect "their" investments. Do you have any idea how much of their research is done with government money, either directly, though "development" tax breaks or partnerships with universities supported by NSA grants? And then they turn around and talk about research costs and that they're a private business that has to make a profit.
Personally, I believe that pharmacutical companies should be given a simple choice. Either you are a private business looking out for your own bottom line and your research costs, in which case you will get no government support, including tax breaks and partnering with any government sponsered research facilities, OR you get all the benifits of societal support that we give pharmacutical and biotech companies in exchange for acceping a modified "public interest" patent on your developments. A Public Interest Patent (PIP) would have a significantly shorter expiration period than standard and would not be enforcable against authenticly convergent research. (insert research companies helping develope an audit proceedure for challenges to authentic convergency here).
If they are going to spout free market retoric to defend making a literal killing on life saving drugs, they should be willing to take their chances in a real free market.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
On the upside, it makes more sense for major corporations to invest in the process if you allow patents to be issued.
However, on the downside again, by awarding patents you discourage the use of new, innovative techniques to map out DNA sequences. By this I mean that people who can dump massive amounts of resources into sequencing DNA using existing technologies may get results faster than researchers who look for new, faster, or more reliable ways to do the same thing. In the long run, having newer, faster and more reliable ways would be better, in case we ever want to sequence the DNA of other things.
A good link to check out is HUGO's (HUman Genome Organization) statement on patenting DNA sequences.
I am very curious to know what other people's opinions on this are.
Let's try the corporate mindset described herein in the context of, say, Galileo. Here's what the legal writ-of-800-lb-gorilla would read:
I, Galileo Galilei, citizen of Venice and discoverer of the four moons of Jupiter, hereby claim sole and exclusive property rights to the said Medecan Moons. Persons wishing to view the moons are required to pay license fees to myself, at the Sidereal Messenger Co., Inc, Ltd, etc. Persons taking an Unauthorized Peek at said Moons will be flogged and burnt at the stake, as is common in these times.
How far can science go when the entire basis, i.e., free exchange of ideas and information, is stifled? With no way to exchange information, scientific dialogue shuts down, and progress comes to a halt. Whether this is caused by cultural disapproval of those ideas (i.e., look up WWII Germany and the unreasoning prejudice against Einstein) or by simple greed, the effect is the same.
Einstein, by the way, believed that a physicist (and by extension, any other scientist) should give his ideas away to humanity for free. I think for that among many other reasons (Relativity) he remains the greatest scientist that has ever lived. . .
This is impossible. You cannot remove the profit motive from scientific research except in periods of war or other danger.
Unfortunately for your argument, as the U.S. Human Genome Project home page points out,
Aparently, there is no profit motive here... instead, there is a rare glimpse into a government (well, OK, pone government, but I suspect other countries of the same benevolence) actually doing what most people think it should do: support and enhance the common good. Let's stop and savor that for a moment...
Mmmmmmmmm.
OK, that out of the way, I have to admit that in some senses, you're right. For the individual researchers on the project, this is the meal ticket! The mother lode! After working on this baby, they'll be able to get a job anywhere in the industry... as long as their work is recognized. As long as other people can examine it and judge it as worthy. As long as it is - dare I say it? - open .
Look at the Human Genome Project not as an excercise in biotechnology, but a bunch of gene hackers trying to earn a reputation and build something they can be proud of, and I think you'll find a lot of parallels between these folks and the ones who created the foundation of the internet lo so many moons ago.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
Disclaimer: I'm a shareholder in CRA.
I think there's a more general point to be made about this, beyond the matter of Gene Patents. When I read these articles, I sense an attitude of "we need to get the profit out of medicine, so we can help more people." This is just ludicrious, and is one of the reasons that socialized medicine is a failure wherever it's tried. There's a reason that the US has by far the best health care in the world, and by far the best medical research in the world.
It's called profit. Sure, we could force CRA to throw away the millions of dollars they've spent in indexing the genome faster than anyone else. But that would not be in the best interest of society, because that sets a precedent that anyone who comes up with an innovation will have it deemed in "society's best interest" and be pressured to put in the public domain. Who needs the abuse?
We are far better off letting the market be efficient, and letting companies like CRA and others do what they do best -- which is innovate in the area of genetics. CRA is not going to hoard the information, they are going to license it.
We will get results far, far faster letting the free market do the work with normal economic incentives, rather than letting a bunch of government researchers take decades to do something with the information.
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Also, there are two competing gene projects. One is the Human Genome Project, which is publicly funded and all of whose results are immediately put into the public domain; the other is run (mostly) by a private corporation called Celera Genomics, partnered with other companies. They're the ones getting the patents, which hopefully will be thrown out.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Now, if Celera gives full disclosure of their databases to the HGP, and the HGP uses that information to refine their own map, and the HGP's map is given out to researchers for FREE, then what does Celera have left to gain financially from their work? This is the real concern - for Celera to profit from this initiative, they by definition HAVE to retain some information from HGP, or else get the HGP to agree to some form of non-disclosure.
This article had nothing to do with genome patents (although if they're out there, they should be a concern of course). It's a scenario where corporate collaboration with a non-profit project could end up forcing the non-profit group to have limits placed on what information they can release, and how fully they can benefit the public.
You know what to do with the HELLO. ...
Help create an open-source world
After all, didn't those guys INVENT the human genome?
What? They didn't? They discovered it then, huh? That counts for something...
Didn't do that either? You mean all they did was make a record of something that's been around for millions of years, and that we've known about for most of a century?
Sure, that discovery is worth something. Not sure what... A six pack of beer maybe...
Gonzo
Maybe we can get an Everything listing to explain these things in genome-related stories, instead of the same misconceptions popping up every time.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
How can you patent the mapping of the human genome? That's like patenting the mapping of the North American continent. Perhaps you can copyright a specific map that you've designed and drawn of the continent, but patent it?
I can understand patenting a specific process they may have used, which may be unique, to uncover and map the human genomes, but not the map itself. If they copyrighted the map, though, I would understand. That would also leave it open to other people and organizations to produce their own maps -- just like countless people have produced and released maps of North America. None of them are breaking any patent or copyright law by doing so.
I do not see any right given here beyond copyrighting this information. And doing so would not prevent anyone in the world from creating new technologies and treatments with this information. If they used this information, they would need to pay for it -- just like I would have to pay for acopy of Rand Mcnally's Road Atlas if I wanted to plan a trip across the country. McNally neither owns the country or the right to make maps of the country. But they do own a copyright on the individual map I am using to make my trip.
I would think that anyone who wants to make their own map of the human genome would be welcome to. They could then copyright or GPL their map -- or whatever else they wish to do with it.
I admit that this project brings amazing information and possibilities within our grasp, but we all must also admit that this was no trivial thing. This is a massive project which has taken massive funding and hundreds of man-years (minimally) to accomplish. If this was a private endeavor, it should be that private orgnaization's right to distribute and limit the information however they wish. If, however, the project was largely a public/government undertaking (as has always been my understanding) then this information needs to be freely available without restriction.
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icq:2057699
seumas.com
Today, maps are copyrighted, and for good reason. If I go out and spend millions surveying an area so that I can print an accurate map, I should be protected by copyright. Another person shouldn't be allowed to xerox my maps and then undercut my price. I deserve to be compensated for my investment. I don't own the information the maps are based on (the locations of cities and such). I own the my particular collection of it. While no own can legally copy my maps, they can go survey the area themselves and produce their own map. I suspect most people would find that eminantly fair. The person who does the work gets the money.
This is really no different. If Cerela creates a map of the human genome, they deserve the right to copyright their database of the human genome. That is only fair. However, they do not deserve the right to copyright the human genome itself. And, AFAIK, they aren't trying to.
In other words, if you want a copy of what Celera did, you should have to pay them. That is only fair. If you don't want to pay them, then you are perfectly free to extract your own DNA and create your own map of the human genome. They can't stop you. You can then sell your database, which you can certainly copyright yourself.
This is no different from geographical maps. No one "owns" the arrangement of geographical features in the world. Lots of mapmakers own their own particular collection of data concerning those features. That's the difference.
Perhaps a better example: If I write a book that describes the Linux kernel in detail, I can certainly copyright that description and charge whatever the hell I want for it. No one, not even Linus, can stop me. However, what I've copyrighted is my description of the Linux kernel, not the Linux kernel itself. This is no different. What Celera is talking about is not copyrighting the human genome, but copyrighting their description of the human genome.
The cake is a pie