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Should DNA be Patentable?
nexex writes: "This story seems brings the patent debate home; specifically, should a company or person be able to 'own' your DNA? Obviously researchers want to profit from their discoveries, thus funding new research. But critics counter they are profitting at the expense of our health, citing restrive screening licenses for things such as breast cancer and Alzheimer's. Citing a figure from a UK activist group, 500,000 gene or gene sequence patents have been applied for worldwide. Another excellent article on this issue from Salon.com was from a couple years ago."
Should DNA be Patentable?
No.
Ok, whats the next ridiculous question...
Why shouldn't DNA be patentable? It's merely a chemical compund, an arrangement of base pairs in a double helix structure.
From a fundamental viewpoint it's no different from a chain based caprolactam built by a ring opening polymerization, or vinyl addition polymerization.
If you give DNA some special status as not being patentable, while ANY other chemical compound is, what is next? Do we deny patents to all biologically active molecules? All organic molecules????
It's not like these patents are causing any great distortion of our daily lives, AND the fact is that patents have a quite short lifetime in the grand scheme of things. Already many of the original biotech patents are expiring. My guess is that the time needed to develop and commercialize a DNA based product will average longer than a patent lifetime anyway.
20 years from now the debate over DNA patenting will be laughed at as pure silliness.
Is ANAL COX planning to patent his COCK?
STOP ME BEFORE I POST AGAIN!
it is the abuse of patents for pharmaceuticals that is putting a excessive burden on our medical system.
t ab le.html
The issue is far more complicated than that. Suppose xyz Pharma develops a cure for breast cancer. People pay all sorts of money for the drug because it's very effective and HORRORS patented. xyz does well off the discovery and everyone complains about the profits xyz is making. Well, dammit, why shouldn't they be profitable? They took the risk and funded the development of this drug. People wouldn't be buying it if it didn't work. Presumably the benefit of the drug (longer life, no painful death frm cancer) far outweighs the cost.
Now people start complaining that the drug is putting an excessive burden on the Heath Care system bacsue it's so effective. OK, don't buy the drug, and let the people die instead. Ooops that's not politically acceptable. Is it xyz's fault that they came up with something that cures a horrible disease? Not hardly.
THE FAULT IS THAT PEOPLE WANT EVERYTHING FOR FREE. Sorry, by the laws of thermodynamics are not going away anytime soon.
Pharmaceutical companies are the most profitable companies in the world
That is not even CLOSE to being correct. No pharmacuetical company is in the top ten list of moist profitable companies. There are two in the top 20, at 18 and 19.
Take a look at the list for yourself:
http://www.fortune.com/cache/ns_list_most_profi
The Pharms don't rank very high in terms of profit margin percentage, either. Techs like Microsoft, Intel and Oracle do much better.