Slashdot Mirror
Biotech Genome Patents Invalidated?
bruthasj writes "The Boston Globe has a piece about all the Biotechs grabbing patents that dealt with segments of the Human Genome. It appears there are work arounds and that the USPTO basically disregards further patents on the genome. As one quoted: ''The land grab is over''. Read about it here."
previous patents? I think USPTO should admit their mistake and invalidate them too.
Just imagine being told you have cancer....and then being handed a law suite for not licensing the process of mutating human DNA.
If only the USPTO would wake up to other scemes like this.
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky
This seems asinine to me. How can somebody claim a patent on genes?? Isn't that like patenting gravity or sunlight?? I thought you had to invent something to patent it. Marconi patented the radio, he didn't patent radio waves. (and yes i realize he may not have patented the radio, but it did sound good. :)
or do they just pay 10,000 monkeys to read through it then rubber stamp it?
I read the whole article and I don't see anything that mentions how these patents are actually checked/verified.
just says they're getting 'stricter'. Well boo-hoo. Before they just rubberstamped any shite that came thru, and now you have to tell them a little bit about the shite before they rubberstamp it without checking.
Liberty.
All along the way to make money from genomics was not to file patents.
The way to make money is to cure disease, repair injuries, and extend life. I'm glad it only took a few years to clear THAT up.
Now let's hope Bush doesn't have too many of our best and brightest running from his lynch-the-cloners plan.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
When we start thinking of complexity issues, we have to change our viewpoint as to what is in nature and what is invented.
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
seems like we're in a crazy new age of intellectual property being the new gold. I wonder what other areas of research should be limited on new issued patents. Will there soon be a trend of lowering the patent issue rate for all types of patents? Or is this only local to genetics..
while i wholeheartedly agree that patenting things like genes seems obviously public domain and incredibly prior art, there is a bigger issue at hand... money.
several people in my family are scientists involved in genetic engineering and we have had this discussion many times. the point that they make is that pharmaceutical companies must be able to secure their findings to pay for the research they do to find these genes and produce drugs to treat various diseases. remember that companies like merck aren't doing research like this because they are simply curious, no instead they want to find things like the cure for cancer or diabetes or aids or the common cold because it makes them money.
this research is ungodly expensive, so the drug companies want to make sure that if they did the research and found something, their competitors won't be able to cash in on it before they do. or worse yet, some company in asia making pills for next to nothing. this is their greatest fear, and this is why they patent things like there is no tomorrow.
while i still find it morally and ethically wrong to patent things like genes, i can't come up with a better way for these companies to do their business. and as much as i'm not into big businesses, i do like staying healthy...
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
I don't it should be possible to patent 'information' that is by its own existence 'prior art'. Processes to extract, create, manipulate this information should be patentable.
Like I mentioned in the other post, COPYRIGHT is something different to a patent.
Copyrights on human gene sequences cannot be given. Why? Because an 'author' gains copyright. Nobody can author something that other people carry with them from birth as a chemical sequence. Even if a sequence was copyrightable then you would not have to license your DNA from Big Bad Corp because you are carrying it a chemical form, not a sequence of letters, etc etc.
A patent on a practical usage of a sequence is a completely different matter. Inventions using already occuring elements are fine under law and fine for most people. If somebody patents ATATATAT as a sequence used in a drug to boost human intelligence, then they're creating a new drug using that sequence, in the same way that a hydrogen engine uses naturally occuring metals and hydrogen to push a car. Usage is key and it seems that the Patent Office is pushing the usage aspect. Thankfully.
There is also the ridiculous situation where everyone is surely in breach of the patent, since everyone contains a copy of the patented DNA.
I don't it should be possible to patent 'information' that is by its own existence 'prior art'. Processes to extract, create, manipulate this information should be patentable.
It isn't.
What biotech patents are all about is "using information x to do y",
for example: "using a breast-cancer gene to detect patient suspectibility to breast-cancer".. etc
The problem with biotech patents is that these claims are vague, and the application in question is often obvious.
That's where the problem is
I hope this invalidates that patent on the breast cancer gene, discussed here.
It is just stunning to me that could be issued in the first place. And the company was actually using their patent to try and stop others from treating the gene, because it was their gene? Human body parts of any kind should not be patented. This may sound sexist, but I think if that was a testicle gene the patent never would have been issued. (sort of like the viagra vs birth control debacle)
One loophole is really simple.
Patents are for inventions. No court can really argue this.
So say I discover a gene, and later find a way to cure something by using that gene.
I can simply go ahead and do so, as long as no other companys cure the same problem with the same gene.
If all they have done is patent the gene, I am free to ignore that.
So say they did patent the gene I use, and attempt to sue me.
I can be nice and explain to them the error of their way, but legally im not required to even respond directly to them.
So they try to sue me.
All I would need to do in a court of law is have them show their invention using the gene to the court. This is how two partys would prove that my invention is not the same (or if it is.)
They will have no such invention.
(Like i said, if they do, they have a valid process to patent, and life goes on.)
So at this point its safe to conclude that my invention (curing something by using this gene) does not at all match anything they are doing.
No patent infringement issue at all.
A judge could not claim a gene itself is patentable. At that point any living person is prior art which will invalidate the patent fully.
From the Article:
"In the 57-page patent, 31 pages are filled with streams of As, Ts, Gs, and Cs, letters that represent the four amino acids that make up the DNA fragments that relate to the kinases." [emphasis added]
OUCH! Amino acids do not make up the genetic code! ATGC are nucleotides . Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. The amino acid sequence of proteins is encoded in the sequence of nucleotides in nucleic acid.
I realize that this post could be considered a nitpick, but to me it's not. It's like a software designer reading somewhere that the source code for an application was "written in the XML programming language." Doesn't that make your gut clamp up? Or what about, "Internet Explorer is my operating system?"
Fair enough. But there's two ways to go about it:
1. You discover a gene, and patent it. In the worst case, everyone is prohibited from doing research involving this gene without your approval for 17 years. Even if you're incapable of doing anything with it, like most of the companies with huge numbers of gene patents.
2. You discover a gene, and copyright your database. Others who wish to use your data pay you for access to the database. Anyone who doesn't want to pay can find the damn gene themselves, which takes time and money but isn't illegal.
Celera primarily chose (2), and received far more abuse than it deserved for their choice. They certainly shouldn't have been forced to make any of their data public*, but they shouldn't be able to prevent competitors from working on the same project.
Part of the problem is that molecular biology moves so quickly that a copyright may be useless after a few years. A patent, however, can cripple a promising area of research. Given that most basic research is done by academics, and having read enough articles about scientists getting screwed by companies, I'm inclined to side strongly against gene patents.
(* Except where required for publication in a journal.)