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Inventor Disputes DNA Sequencer Patent

Posted by timothy on from the stealing-back-your-best-ideas dept.

syntap writes: "USA Today is reporting on a story on an argument between a research company and the California Institute of Technology over who 'owns' a particular DNA sequencing technology, and they want it placed in the public domain. 'The suit also claims that millions of federal dollars were used to create the device, which would give researchers backed by the government the rights to buy and use the sequencer without paying royalties. It demands that Caltech and Applera refund millions of dollars to federal agencies for royalties they paid on sequencers used in public research.'"

2 of 20 comments (clear)

  1. some comments by nucal · · Score: 5, Informative
    For what it's worth: Henry Huang looks like he has a pretty impressive CV. He worked with Lee Hood from 1977-1982, a time period where Hood was making the transition from being a molecular immunologist to more of a DNA sequencing technologist. So the timing was right for him to have made a significant contribution to the DNA sequencing method. Pretty bad move to leave him off the patent if he did make a contribution.

    MJ Research, who filed the lawsuit, is a manufacturer of "affordable" lab equipment - including thermocyclers for PCR amplificaton of DNA - which might have been a previous patent issue for them (since they don't explicitly mention PCR in the description). Judging from their product line, they'd like to crack the sequencing market. As an aside, they have offices "all over the world", including Lake Tahoe (Incline Village, NV) - I wonder if that's a condo?

  2. Re:not metioned in the article... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Thats pretty standard for any employment contract. If you do something on their time or with their equipment, it belongs to them. It sucks, but it's fair. Now, if you are careful to only do it on your own time and with your own equipment, then it's yours. I know a prof at Michigan who runs a business on the side that's related to his research area, but he keeps things completely separate, so the U can't touch it.

    Basically, if he wrote the program as a part of his job, it's not his to give away, it's the university's. There may be someone who would see the reasonableness of GPLing it and let that be done, but he'd have to find someone with the power to do that.