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New Technique Makes Most Gene Patents Irrelevant
Billy the Mountain writes "This Scientific American article, Legal Circumvention, describes a technique for circumventing gene patents whereby living cells are coaxed into expressing genes, especially those genes currently held under patents. Although, would-be exploiters of genes are prevented by patent restrictions from constructing a particular sequence and replicating it, patent law cannot be enforced in instances where an existing cell or organism is caused to express any of these patented genes and proteins."
And now science routes around damage too.
So, if I make a computer design a part using what it is supposed to do (push levers, bend things, twist things, etc.), under a set of parameters (size, material, etc.) and feed that into a CNC mill and out came a patented part, would that be okay?
I think not...
-twb
Is it just me or does anyone see this evolving into a Copy Protection cat-and-mouse game? For example: Company A creates sequence, somehow circumvents this way of showing the sequence, then releases it, only to have Company B circumvent their circumvention, etc etc etc. Sorta like the Lotus 123 Copy protection game back in the late 80s(?)
Or worse, Company A not release their cure for cancer until they have found a way of having it not be undone by this technique?
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
Don't worry, I'm sure 'big pharm' will have E. coli and friends all classified as circumvention devices. Better start scraping that bacteria out of your stomach, lest Pfizer come knocking on the door...
As the Internet community has tried to tell people for years, our current ideas of Intellectual Property are dead. Copyright, patents and other monopolizing influences on pure information have no reason to exist and the Internet has finally given us the means to destroy these useless ideas. I'm not against credit for one's work; the GPL and other such licenses can protect that if people are responsible in their use of open-sourced information. The difference is that in the Information Age, if you're going to come up with ideas for the good of society, you'll have to do it solely for that reason. Is that so wrong? Would it be wrong to teach people that to do the right thing and do things that are positive for society is it's own reward in the recognition one receives? Must we promise lordly lifestyles to those who create good things? Not really. Imagine this; a world where people develop cancer medications that can be distributed at low cost because they want to cure cancer, not because they want to make money. A world where scientists work together to solve problems, instead of working separately to make money. Let's think about that. The only problem is corporations (who give us more reasons not to trust them every day) want to protect the old system, because it grants them power. The thing they don't realize is that they've already lost. The old world is dying a slow and painful death; let's do the responsible thing and euthanize it.
can one patent a technique for making other patents irrelevant?
OK.. when science is having to develop new methods which have absolutely no practical value other than to dodge patent laws, you know the patent law is completely unjust. Patent as a concept is granted to promote science and facilitate its advancement. When science is instead treating the law as an obstacle and exerting effort on finding ways to go around it-- that is to say, when for task A which has been patented it is easier to find a way to circumvent the patent law than it is to design an alternate, non-patent-covered version of task A-- then that patent law is not serving its purpose, is being a detriment to science, and is probably unconstitutional.
One of the neatest features of patent law is that it encourages lots of experimentation; if you need to do something, and there is a patented way to do this thing, and you can't afford to license the patent or the patent owner refuses to license it, this isn't that much of a problem; you just find an alternate way to do the thing, enlightened by your knowledge of how the current patent holders do it, and then patent your version. Today's overly broad patents prevent this; rather than creating cycles where technologies in a given industry iteratively improve as each company innovates new things and patents them (and the other companies look at the public details of the patent filing and try to find better ways of doing the same innovation) today's patents create dead ends; places where technology may no longer advance except with the permission of a certain company.
Because the main problem with the unjust patents of today-- software patents, business model patents, gene patents-- is that they cover a goal, not a methodology. Indeed, these patents are not just overly broad, they miss the point entirely; they cover concepts, while patent law was only ever intended to cover implementations of concepts.
Just a thought.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
In general, biotechnology companies are flush with cash. So, you come to them and ask "can we license your patent for a gene?"
Well, they have no friggin' idea what that license is worth. If they need money, they say "yes." If they're flush with venture capital, and even in this downturn, they are, they just say "no." If you come back with a ridiculous offer, they'd take it anyway, but they just won't deal for a reasonable price because, to them, it's a poor gamble. They've no reason to sell these things, and they know they've got value - because you want 'em. Alternatively, they may be using that gene patent to maintain a monopoly on some drug or treatment. No way they're going to license it to you (for a reasonable amount, once again) so that you can compete with them.
There was a plan by a colleague over at Cornell to do something pro-social with genetic engineering - I think it involved genetically engineering some tropical fruit (Mangos?) to retard spoilage. Whatever it was, it solved an economic problem for poor farmers on Pacific islands. Anyway, they had a way to do it but it involved a bunch of patented genes and processes. Funny thing was, these patents were sitting idle, unused by their owners. However, the owners of these patents wouldn't sell licenses because they had no idea of the value of what they were giving out. So, when in doubt, they refused.
A lot of these gene patenting outfits are (largely failed, because they've patented genes no one really wants) extortion rings. They're actually easier to deal with, since their gene patents are often legally weak, and they don't want to price themselves out of the market.
Discussing this technology itself - this isn't new. We new about zinc finger proteins when I took freshman biology, that would have been seven years ago.
Sangamo BioSciences in Richmond, Calif., has made about a fourth of them to bypass patent restrictions by using its "zinc finger protein" transcription factors, proteins that turn genes on and off.
The implication of this sentence is that zinc finger proteins are an innovation developed or discovered by Sangamo. This is not the case.
Athersys didn't develop their technique, either (not implied by the article,) although I've only heard of it used in the past to turn random genes OFF.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
It's under appeal, but doesn't look good. The GM Canola apparently spreads like a weed and is growing everywhere. And once it hits your property, Monsanto claims the right to rip up your crop if you don't pay them for a patent license. The best general overview I've seen is the 169k pdf file linked from here.
If the Scientific American article is correct, it looks like US patent law is (for once) less screwed up than at least part of the rest of the world's.
....And I've got the "prior art" to proove it! I was using these genes for years before anyone knew what they did. And I've sold myself for money too, as much as I could...
..
There is simply no legitimate reason why anyone should be granted a patent on a gene....perhaps they COULD get a patent on a particular piece of equipment, for the purpose of making a particular set of proteins. That's a legit patent, you know,
"equipment/process for doing something novel" and "for the advancement of the usfull arts" kinda stuff...either way, it's NOT for something that's either an idea or just simply a fact of nature.
Yeah, I've heard the drug companies arguments too..."we spent sooooo much money finding out what this gene does...", blah..blah...blah...it's still bullshit unless you found some cool way of making "special protein sequence #27(tm)." You cannot get a patent for simply proving it's existance and/function in nature. That's the patent rule..
I say these other "bio-pirate" companies should absolutely PLUNDER these stupid "patent holders"...
...You can't own the ideas in this conceptual land rush, you just gotta fill you brain up fast as you can and stay on your feet....
Patents are stupid!!! Copyright sucks!!! Trademarks are crap!!! Ban intellectual property!!! Screw the establishment!!!
Patent pending. Copyright (c) 2002, rice_burners_suck. All rights reserved. "Patents are stupid!!! Copyright sucks!!! Trademarks are crap!!! Ban intellectual property!!! Screw the establishment!!!" is a registered trademark of rice_burners_suck. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This flamebait is protected by U.S. copyright law and international treaty. Do not make illegal copies of this flamebait. All violations are punishable by death per subparagraph 3,939,112 of DMCA XP 2004.I hope you enjoy the latest version of my long running tirade.
Let us say, just for the sake of argument, that a method of extracting or purifying a gene consists of an invention, worthy of patent, in and of itself. Let us identify two things: 1. The goal it accomplishes, 2. the unique advances made to achieve that goal. Keep this in mind as I raise the next point.
Now, let us consider two microprocessor designs, each of which is patented seperately; an Intel 8286 and a Motorola 68020, say. Let us identify two things: 1. The goal each of these devices accomplishes (which are, I will assume from here on out, the same,) and 2. the unique advances each devices incorporates in an effort to achieve that goal.
So, Intel has patented an arrangement of transistors and other components intended to do digital computations; it generates less heat per fetch-execute cycle than its predecessor the 8186(I don't actually know that - I'm just assuming). Motorola then comes along and patents another microprocessor design which is totally different, but it, too, generates less heat per cycle than it's predecessor (the 68010, if I remember correctly). Has Motorola violated Intel's patent on processors that generate less heat? Has AMD violated Intel's patent on processors that are fast? Cheap to manufacture? No; in order to violate Intel's patent you need to replicate (at the very least) some identifiable element of their unique design.
Back to genes. Amgen has patented a means of achieving a desired end - the purification of some protein. If I come along and achieve the same end, by some other technique, I'm violating their patent. EVEN IF, and this is important, I use none of their actual inventions at all! I am violating their patent because I am seeking the same end.
This article highlights a practical fallacy in gene patenting (as opposed to an intellectual one). Genes, which are not the only important kind of DNA, are impotant only because they make proteins. Therefore, in order to make gene-patenting worthwhile, you have to control the protein product. In the case of a gene that makes something found in normal healthy people this is an absurd notion - not that this will stop Amgen from trying.
Patenting genes that cause diseases is a seperate intellectual fallacy that deserved coverage in it's own right.
This is like patenting the act of killing germs. If a disease is caused by an abnormal (mutant) protein, than the only true cure is to fix that protein - replace it with functional protein, or remove those cells generating the harmful protein, according to the particular condition. The same argument applies to gene-products (proteins) that cause elevated risk for cancer, heart disease and the like. A patent on the gene is basically a patent on all possible cures for that condition/predilection. A gene that causes a predilection for breast cancer should be viewed as a condition in and of itself (which needs to be at least treated,) and not as some part of a particular treatment for breast cancer.
Finally, I should say our genomes, not just collectively, but individually, are the property of the human race. In a biological sense, they ARE the human race.
Bees are generally black and yellow, and have poisonous stingers. Individual bees, however black or yellow they may be, and poisonous their stingers may be, are all 100% bees - they all possess an equal allotment of beeness. Likewise, the quality of humanity is 100% endowed to each of us.
However, it does not arise from any of us individually. We are all human only because the entire human species exists. The genome of any individual person is NOT sufficient to specify the human race; the genetic diversity of your fellow human beings is part and parcel of YOUR fundamental human identity.
The same is true, in fact, of the genetic diveristy of all known living things, who are our cousins.
Many people have a viceral objection to the idea of a gene being owned. Certain of my colleagues are fond of implying that this arises from some degree of scientific ignorance on their part, or a lack of appreciation for the effort that goes into doing molecular biology. I am a molecular biologist myself, fully cognicant of the hard work that is done. I understand all of that quite well, but I come to the same viceral conclusion: you cannot that which makes us human.
Also, the parent is really funny. Mod it up.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
The idea that you can infringe on a patent by purifying a protein is ludacrous.
All purification techniques are basically the same. There are basically say about 20 ways to purify a protein (i.e., by size when folded, size when denatured, charge, substrate binding, shape, pH, hydrophobicity, genetically fusing the protein to a tag such as GST and using affinity for that tag to purify, etc). Any procedure used to purify a protein not-before-purified is simply the right implementation of these processes. This is something which takes a while (usually about a year, reserved for grad. students) to get right, because you basically have to have an assay for your protein activity and find a way to purify the protein via these methods by trial and error; you can tell how pure the protein is by measuring activity levels.
In other words, there is NO NEW technique that anyone invents now-a-days when purifying a protein. People figure out new applications and combinations of old techniques, or new specific implementations. However, these are NOT new techniques themselves (i.e., often times, the new implementation may be running the purification at pH 6 rather than pH 7). They are certainly not worthy of patents.
Of course, the greed of biotech companies and the gneral plundering of science knows no limit in the corporate world. They aren't real scientists. Like there are basketball players who play for the love of the game (i.e., Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird), and then there's the guys who play and its all about themselves and making money (i.e., Allen Iverson and Latrell Sprewell). Same thing with biology. There are real scientists who do what they do for the love of science (i.e., Watson and Crick, Rosalin Franklin), and then there's scientists who are all about their own ego and making money (i.e., Creig Ventor).
Had scientists realized that their discoveries would be used as the basis for patents restricting the progress of science, they would have thought up the idea of patent-left, and forced anything based off their ideas to remain free for all to use.
When Linus Pauling pioneered the first protein techniques, he assumed that any modifications to his techniques would be made freely available for all; that was the culture of science. When Rosalin Franklin, Watson, and Crick discovered the structure of DNA, they assumed that the knowledge and benefits gained resulting from the knowledge of that structure would be made freely available to all; that was the culture of science. In most scientists minds today, that is still the assumption. Unfortunately, due to proprietary parasites on the scientific community, that assumption is invalid. These proprietary parasites are not members of the scientific community -- they are parasites on it. They add nothing or very little, and hurt the community at large. They are much like the corporate raiders of the net today, who have become a plague to *our* internet.
The scientific community needs to wake up and disinfect itself of these parasites. The scientific community should start copylefting publications and patent-lefting inventions.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen