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Outstanding Achievements In Biopiracy - 2004
mr_don't writes "The Coalition Against Biopiracy is hosting yet another 'Captain Hook Awards,' for 'Outstanding Achievements in Biopiracy.' So far, only a few nominees have been submitted, but a key one is for Melbourne-based Genetic Technologies for 'having patented the non-coded DNA of all living creatures, including humans.' The web site is calling for 'help to identify the Greediest, Most Offensive and Dangerous biopirates from across the globe' -- I am sure Slashdot readers certainly know of a few."
Of how braindead the patent system is. How can they allow someone to patent something they didn't even *invent*? I'm very surprised none of those companies they're suing have tried to get the patent declared invalid, there's prior art going back a few million years...
It may simply be a patent on "methods for researching non-coded, or "junk", DNA."
So what's the problem with that? I'd like to see a little evidence that they've indeed "patented the non-coded DNA of all living creatures", and not just come up with some convenient way to analyze it.
But he will be responsible for the Eugenics Wars. KHAN!!!
Patents such as the example given at the top of the page should be illegal. They are without merit and are effectively premeditated malice as the company intends to play "law suit roulette" by suing as many companies as they can with the hope of winning more cases that they lose. Such patents are unhelpful to the human race as a whole and are damaging to the ethical companies who get caught up in the malicious law suits. Doesn't that sound to you like it should be a crime?
Put on your raincoats and helmets, lads; the pigs'll be flying over at any moment!
Looking at the summaries of the intron ("Junk DNA") patents, they seem to be applications of completely general techniques and knowledge (restriction digests & DNA sequencing (first developed in the 1960's), introns (discovered in 1977), and PCR amplification (invented in 1985)) to a subsection of the domain the prior techniques were intended to cover.
It's a bit like having someone invent the automobile then someone else patenting "Using an automobile to deliver packages"
Specifically the patents seem to be:
1. Use primers derived from dna sequence flanking the intron and immediately inside the intron to PCR amplify the intron
2. Do stuff (sequence, map restriction sites) with the intron sequence you've amplified in step one.
This isn't to diminish any insight the inventor might have had into the importance of "junk DNA", but the method described is a straightforward application of more general processes.
~Phillip
I was beginning to wonder where they'd gone...
No, just me? Oh. Oops.
That would certainly give a whole new meaning to frenching...
My DNA belongs to me, obviously.
But what about DNA in other life forms? I have a piebald gerbil, who everyone thinks is the prettiest of the lot. Whose is her DNA? Have I the right to breed from her and sell the offspring? Probably not if you believe the animal rights extremists {BTW, if you're one of them: organic fertiliser is made from animals} but what's a gerbil going to do by way of revenge? {Apart from escape from her cage and chew through my CAT5 in several places, but that's too horrible a thought to contemplate}. However, once I have sold any of my fancy-coloured gerbils, I lose all claim to them. I can't prevent them breeding {actually it is physically possible to sterilise a gerbil, but the anaesthetic is the sticking point; too little and it dies of pain, too much and it never comes around. You could dilute the dope to measure it [easier to measure whole grammes at 0.1% than milligrammes at full strength], but you'd need to re-purify it before administering it.} Anyway. The point is that if I breed an animal or a plant, its DNA does not belong to me.
Or, suppose I had bred a certain Medicinal Herb that had particularly fine qualities, with the intention of selling it in ten-pound wraps. If I really wanted to make sure nobody else could grow my wonder Weed, then I should be responsible for making sure it has no viable seeds in it -- and if I fail, and someone else starts selling the same product cheaper, well, that's my tough titty. {Don't try this at home, kids; the offspring from first generation hybrids may bear little resemblance to the parent stock. Draw some mendel diagrams if you want to prove it to yourself.} DNA is in the Public Domain. We just haven't quite finished recovering the source from the munged binaries we were given.
At any rate, we need to push for an INTERNATIONAL law that there is NO "INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY" IN LIVING THINGS, and impose sanctions on countries whose laws do not recognise this concept. This may upset a few rich people, but so did the abolition of slavery. Ultimately it would ensure that science would benefit society {e.g. disease-resistant crops to feed the world} rather than harming it {e.g. high-maintenance crops upon which biotechnology and associated companies, and precious few others, get fat}.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I heard that God has a patent on creating humans out of dust;). Does that count?
Alphanos
It's non-coding, not non-coded, and though common, the term junk DNA is highly inaccurate. The E. coli genome, for instance, contains around ten non-coding sequences whose function is known, around fifty that have been identified but whose function has not yet been determind, and almost a thousand which are thought to be functional but have not yet been confirmed experimentally. Not too shabby for an organism whose genome consists of only 4,000 to 5,000 genes, depending on the particular strain!
I came across an interesting essay of RMS' on "biopiracy" that is worth considering.
Digital Citizen
The interesting thing about this patent is the future legal battle it creates.
Introns are the non-coding segments of DNA, the parts of the code that do not specially get transcribed and translated into proteins. However, many scientists have discovered cases where the introns often dictate the expression levels of exons (protein coding regions) around them.
My question is this, if this company "owns" the introns and claims to make a medically useful technology based on controlling protein expression, but another company already patented the sequence that codes for the protein, who gets the rights (and riches) of the technology - the owner of the modulator of the protein or the owner of the protein?
Let science be free like the life in the sea!
I can't find it right now, but I recall seeing a patent relating to kissing.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
It is actualy easy and rather cheap to get bulsh#t patents through. I have seen patents covering all possible variation/combination of derivatives of a natural product, which was apparently drafted without going into a trouble of making these analogs and included as a "novel" structure the very same natural products. (Natural products cannot be patented per se, only their non-obvious application or formulation). I have also seen patent preparative procedure that were completely irreproducible and probably fake.
The patents that do not conform patent law can be easily challenged even after they are issued and will not withstand the court scrutiny. The same goes even for patents that are too broad, having all-encompassing claims without sufficient number of clearly described specific examples.
Start-up biotech companies often exaggerate value of their proprietary technology to secure financing. It starts with describing their own technology as "cutting-edge", "state of the art", publishing self-promotional papers in second-tier journals demonstrating their achievements (even though the technology is not quite developed and/or does not work reliably). It includes stealing credit from competing reserch groups (claiming their discoveriies as their own, under different name and not-referencing competitors work). Far-reaching patents belong to the same category of PR-science geared towards investors.
Start-up biotech drug company needs at least 5 years - more often 10 years - before it has something to sell . It can take much longer before it starts turning profit. Even if the value is there, it still needs a lot of convincing the investors to supply huge ammount of money for so long. Burning rate $20M/y is not considered high for a normal-sized biotech company employing around 80 people.
Scientists are people like anybody else, when the job and investment is at stake, they may compromise on their research integrity.
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
If they patent the uncoded DNA of all living creatures, then when the patent expires they will all be in the public domain and no one else can ever recreate this stupidity again.