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Caltech DNA Sequencer Patent Question
brusk writes: "An article from this Sunday's Los Angeles Times is a fascinating investigation of the background to the Caltech spinoff company that produced and sells the DNA sequencer that will be responsible for a complete draft of the human genome within a month or two. It appears that despite denials by the developers and Caltech, millions in NSF and other federal grants went into the development of the sequencer. This is supposed to give federal agencies large discounts on their purchases of sequencers and input into how the devices are marketed. This has interesting implications for the future of these for-profit spinoffs from academe. Perhaps even more significantly, the article raises questions about whether the patent application misrepresented the development process, which could invalidate the company's patent on the sequencing technology. This could shake up biotech world."
At the end of the article, you'll find a few paragraphs that talk about a professor who had apparently done crucial work on the sequencer, yet was not named as an inventor on the patent (thus depriving him of royalties and recognition).
...Asked why he had not pursued the issue of his omission from the patent, Huang said that he cared more about the science than about matters of ownership and money.
"If I opened the door for someone else to go through, that's enough. You have to decide where you get your gratification."
After reading of all the ongoing legal manuevering and spinning, this made me stop for a moment. There are still scientists out there who are dedicated to higher goals, thank god.
I'm a plant biology senior at UC Berkeley and one of my professors went over patents/IP law recently, so I have some understanding of how it works. Here at Berkeley, the general license agreement works so that the University of California Regents keep all the patents that come from our research. Private corporations that fund research get to be first in line to apply for a license (exclusive or otherwise), while the Federal Government always gets a license. Furthermore, from what I understand, most licenses/patents allow ues of a technology for non-profit/academic purposes (that's not really relevant, but I thought I'd mention it).
While I'm posting, I might as well explain how patenting genes works, too. The way things are set up at the patent office now, you will not get a patent based solely on sequencing information. In order to even have a chance at a patent, you have to be able to predict the amino acid sequence of the protein the gene encodes (this isn't as easy as just reading across the sequence and matching codons [three letter 'words' in the sequence] with the corresponding amino acid -- only parts of the gene actually get transcribed into protein, the rest gets spliced out...so you have to know a bit about the gene to do this). Generally, however, people also try to get some understanding of a gene's function and operation before they apply for a patent, since this will strengthen their patent...which means maybe they can try to cover other organisms' copy of the gene in their pattern (so they could pattern a gene in, say, mice and also patent any gene that shares 70% of the sequence).
I'm not sure if I explained that terribly well, but I hope it's clear. Now I'd like to present my take on patenting in biotech. Personally, I don't believe in patents. I'm somewhat idealistic -- I'd rather nobody ever had to patent anything because everyone would be socially responsible enough to give credit when using other people's work and to make their work available in return...basically, the GPL. I'd rather we all work because we're excited about what we're doing or we recognize that a service needs to be provided. Unfortunately, that's not the kind of world we live in right now. Patents seem to be necessary in modern economies. After college, I'm going to go back home and run my own biotech company -- and I will patent my work. Not because I believe in it, but because I need to in order to protect myself. If I am open about my work, then others will take it and incorporate it into their proprietary products and my family won't eat. This is why I prefer academic environments -- it's the closest you get to the GPL, because most licenses make exception for it.
The last thing I'd like to bring up is something that I've rarely seen discussed, although it's highly relevant to biotech IP law. How will piracy develop in biotech? Many similarities can be drawn between biotech and CS, both in development and in the nature of the work...and I have no doubt that, once biotech products become more available on the market, they will be pirated. Probably not by individuals, but certainly by corporations. And while that may be illegal here, it's not in China (or a host of other countries)...and several of these countries (China in particular) have both the technological capability and the incentive to steal a product...and it is remarkably easy to do. All you need are a few cells -- you can propagate a whole population from them and then use it to study what Monsanto did and take it. If you never signed a license (or clicked one), would it be illegal? Will we have to sign some form of license agreement to shop in the GMO section at our supermarket? Or will we figure out how to encrypt genes somehow?
Sorry if I rambled, this post got somewhat out of hand....