Ontario Defies U.S. Company Over Cancer Test Patent

An anonymous user sent in a minor bit of news about Ontario and a patented cancer test. The part I found interesting was the price comparison between the patented and non-patented tests - $3000, per test, solely due to the government-granted monopoly. Wow.

Comments

This is going to be major flamebait...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone else see the parallels here between the freeloading that Ontario is attempting and the typical attitude of the "Free Software" contingent?

They want all the benefit of someone else's hard work without having to pay the actual price for it.

Re:This is going to be major flamebait...

[__aaaaxm1522]

You're right, it is major flamebait.

"They want all the benefit of somone else's hard work without having to pay the actual price for it." is a rather silly comparison, when you consider that the price for honouring that patent might be my life.

Re:This is going to be major flamebait...

[cmowire]

True.

It can also be said that people are entitled to payment for their efforts. If I was considering working in the field of cancer screening, but everybody in that field wasn't getting paid because nobody honored the patents, I'd work somewhere else.

If a bunch of biotech research firms working on a cure for cancer went under because they couldn't recoup the research investments necessary to develop new products, that would also be a bad thing.

The problem with medical patents is that medicine is one of those fields where the doctors and researchers are working in the public interest. So, I would consider charging an insane patent licensing fee, just because you could, for a test to be legal but highly unethical.

Keep a close and cynical eye, I say, on the biotech boom. Biotech is the next dotcom boom.

Re:This is going to be major flamebait...

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

Carter noted that large amounts of public money go into scientific discoveries in the form of grants for research and clinical trials.

"The patents typically taken out at the very end stage end of a long, long process that the public has already paid for," he said.

If a company gets a grant to do research, they shouldn't be able to burn the candle at both ends by getting a patent as well. Not only that, patenting genes is a silly idea anyway. All the researchers have done is determine what existing "technology" does (technology being natural genes in this case, but whatever).

If you go back a few hundred years, you'll find that people didn't know exactly how gravity worked. There was no real knowledge of inertia, energy, heat transfer, etc. What would have been the consequences if these ideas had been patented by their pioneers (and don't think that Newton wouldn't have done it, the bastard)? The discovery of these naturally-occuring concepts was no different than the discovery of a new gene today, in terms of intellectual property.

If a company comes up with a new machine to deal with gene analysis faster and more accurately, they should be able to get a patent for the technology they've invented, but handing out patents for genes? Prior art.

Re:This is going to be major flamebait...

[AndyChrist]

Many might not ever get a product to market. If they do, chances are, though, it'll sell. I doubt there are many biotech companies looking for answers to questions no one is asking.

FWIW, there's an election this month.

[Christopher Thomas]

FWIW, there's a provincial election in Ontario this month. "Chainsaw Mike" has taken flak for massive cuts he's made to health care and other services in the province over the course of his two terms.

He may honestly be doing this to give Ontario residents better health care.

Or he may be doing this in a (hopefully futile) attempt to make us forget his past unpopular acts.

Re:FWIW, there's an election this month.

[Darwin_Frog]

Ummm, no. There's no provincial election in Ontario this month, or this year, for that matter. Maybe there's some municipal elections, but not provincial.

Re:FWIW, there's an election this month.

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

As previous poster said - no - there's no election.

But I'm glad to have him on our side. No one can Refuse To Be Swayed (yes, capitals) like Mikey.

RE: FWIW, there's an election this month.

[Liquor]

(This should be a reply, but the slashcode doesn't seem to be handling a reply to the right parent post here at the moment.)

There's no provincial election this month (or year even), so our wonderful budget cutting premier Mike Harris isn't in danger of being dumped.

There IS a minor by-election to fill a single seat this month though - so maybe this wouldn't have been quite so loudly trumpeted without it.

(I'm sorry, but this provokes a different rant than against the Ontario government.)

On the other hand, every time a new test or drug comes out that might help prevent a death, it gets promoted to many doctors (who often don't know the actual cost, nor does it cost them anything to recommend or prescribe it). The
test is then performed in a lab, that with Ontario's health system, is paid directly by the province of Ontario, so the patient never sees the bill either. (Even with the new drugs - the doctors often assume that someone has a drug plan - and most if you're on welfare, the government provides you with one). Meanwhile. the $3000/test pure profit seems to be typical of the return that's expected from these patents - and that they expect to be covered by the Ontario taxpayers.

Effectively, the combination of medical patents and government paid health care is allowing such companies to rewrite the laws of supply and demand in their favour, and can set the price arbitrarily high because (in theory at least, practice is yet to be decided by the courts) there is no other source of supply, and the demand is no longer dependent on the price.

And these companies can count on the idea that eventually (barring fatal accidents), we will all be old enough that some overpriced test or drug will be crucial in determining how long we can postpone our deaths.

If it was me, personally, having to pay for a necessary test, at the price difference given in the article, I'd buy the cheaper test, and ignore the patents - And the threatened lawsuit isn't about conducting the tests - it's about the government of Ontario not helping them make an obscene profit.

In Ontario,

Re: FWIW, there's an election this month.

[Christopher Thomas]

There's no provincial election this month (or year even), so our wonderful budget cutting premier Mike Harris isn't in danger of being dumped.

There IS a minor by-election to fill a single seat this month though - so maybe this wouldn't have been quite so loudly trumpeted without it.

Ok, I was misled by the voting card I received in the mail, the party reps phoning around, and the forest of Liberal, NDP, and occasional PC signs on lawns for kilometres around my home in Toronto.

Guess I'm in the lucky seat's riding.

Has the date for the next provincial election been set yet? Harris's term should be pretty close to "up".

Re:FWIW, there's an election this month.

[eXtro]

Chainsaw Mike also put salary caps on doctors, which resulted in a rather substantial brain drain to the United States.

Re:FWIW, there's an election this month.

[gwyrdd benyw]

there's a provincial election in Ontario this month

No, but there was a provincial by-election in Beaches-East York today (Thursday) (which the NDP (a social democratic party) won).

10,000+ years of prior art?

[Liquor]

The patenting of existing genes is ridiculous by almost any non-governmental standard. Human genes can be discovered, or isolated, or better understood - but they are NOT an invention.

By all means let them patent a machine or technique for detecting those genes, and rule out even that if doesn't involve using something that's more of an invention than a trivial dependency on the gene itself (such as binding with the complementary sequence)- but the law that is being interpreted to allow patenting the gene itself needs to be revised or overidden.

Now let's see, there's a gene somewhere in the human genome that generates an enzyme that mediates creating ATP with the energy in glucose - If I can patent that gene, then can I sue anybody who uses that gene without paying me a royalty? Yes? Wonderful - That's going to cost everybody $10 a day for the right to eat, and I'll be as rich as Bill Gates in almost no time! (Or would as rich as Rambus Ink. be a better comparison?)

Go Canada!!

[Enhypnion]

The point here should be that a company should be able to hold a patent on a novel test for the BRCA1 and 2 genes but not the genes themselves. The fact we have allow human gene patents, speaks to the failure of the patent system. And anyone working in the field of human genomics will tell you this is in no way equivilant to the current "Free software/Open source debates". This is grind and find science, and no one is being exploited by the free publication of these gene sequences.

Can anyone say GMCA?

[memyselfandmyhand]

GMCA: Genetic Millenium Copyright Act - You will be required to pay a $30 licencing fee everytime you have sex. Of course open-gene advocated will claim that this violated their rights, and will find ways to circumvent it, forming gene-sharing systems such as Brothelster and Screwtella, but the GIAA will have them shut down.

But seriously, how can a company patent a GENE? I mean, sure, If they have spent a long time ENGINEERING a gene that cures disease X in plant Y, then they can patent it, since they invented it. BUT, you shouldnt be able to parent a gene just because you found it first. It IS prior art. Most of our genes have been around for billions of years. I have had copies of genes for over 18 years, so I dont like that fact that some of them have been patented.

Good old Mike

[Leif_Bloomquist]

Isn't this the same Mike Harris who refused to investigate unfair competition with regard to Ontario's (unexplained) high gas prices a while back? I recall the reasoning was basically that "businesses can and should do what they want."

Anything he touches is dubious

[Apostata]

As an Ontarian (jeez that sounds interstellar, doesn't it?), living in Toronto, I don't have many kind words for Mike Harris. He has been proven to display an unparalleled contempt for anyone not directly supporting/supported by 'big business'.

Provided he does not run in the next election (which is more than a year away, not in a month) or loses, he will have left teachers, environmentalists, students, doctors/nurses, aboriginal Canadians, and the greater populations of Toronto and Hamilton bleeding in his wake.

He is a living example of the banality of maliciousness, and although his position on provincially-funded gene testing is initially applaudable (in my eyes at least), time has only proven that underneath this lies the churning gears of another, dark scheme.

Good golfer though.

Canada & the US Patent Office...

[Anonymous Coward]

The American patent system is broken and desperately needs to be fixed...virtually anything can get a patent these days. Canada is (technically at least) a separate country, and I see no reason why we should not challenge the more ridiculous/destructive American patents under the circumstances. Canadians and Americans (and most everybody else) would benefit immensely from a revamp of the American patent system -- a shame the fox is guarding the hen-house and Joe Average American doesn't have any significant influence on the laws of their land.

Re:Canada & the US Patent Office...

[Anonymous Coward]

joe average american would rather sit in front of his cable tv and eat his mcdonalds.

Same Fight in Europe

[hysterion]

Ontario is not alone in fighting Myriad Genetics. So is the Curie Institute -- see this article from two weeks ago. In particular:

How will you express your opposition?

Quite simply by disputing the patent at the European Office. The Curie Institute will do it before October 10, cut off date. At the beginning, it seemed like a lost battle. But we lengthily studied the file, with lawyers. And, finally, we realized there are blatant faults in their armour. And we will object on three points. Firstly, the defect of innovation: before them, there were already tests of predisposition. Secondly, the defect of invention. Because, to win that race, they largely benefited from the results of public research, results which they did not even quote in the text of the patent. Thirdly, the insufficiency of description: the sequence which was used as a basis for the first patent is insufficient to carry out a test of predisposition.

Even more serious than the waste of money, is the complaint by researchers that Myriad, in effect, prevents them from improving the test so that it tracks a newly identified mutation. (The right to improve code, anyone?)

sucky

[Anonymous Coward]

would someone please suck my feet?
--heidi wall

Moderators on crack

[AndyChrist]

Flamebait? Wha? If it really was flamebait, I think I would have gotten more replies.

What is the difference between flamebait and trolling (which this wasn't)? Flamebait is a successful troll, I think...or one so obvious that people would be expected to take the bait.

I don't get what the flamebait here is, and I wrote the thing. It must not be obvious.