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SCOTUS To Hear Patentable Thought Case
skayell writes "The Supreme Court of the United States will hear a landmark patent case involving whether or not thoughts and relationships are patentable. Michael Crichton's essay in the New York Times attempts a thoughtful summary of Metabolite's primary assertion: they not only own the connection between homocysteine levels in the blood and vitamin B12 deficiency, but also any thought connecting the two."
this is the first time I used a tag crap, you can follow if you wish :)
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Let's just have patents on EVERYTHING, every gene, every molecule, every action you could ever think of. Then in 17 years (or whatever the time limit is) when they expire, we can forget all this patent bullshit and just get on with life again. I'd be willing to wait those 17 years if the patent system would just expire.
Watch my YouTube atheist video blog (user NickGisburne2000) for arguments against religion
Guy 1: "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
Guy 2: "Yes!"
Guy 1: "I'll see you in court, asshole."
The patent system is definitely broken. It is bogging down innovation with lawsuits and silly claims. It is very nice to see Crichton on the offensive about this issue, and hopefully he and Research in Motion (RIM) will be able to trigger some more response and reform in the patent office. As was noted earlier on ./ RIM is running full-page ads (cf. http://www.rcrnews.com/news.cms?newsId=25858) protesting the patent office situation.
Fitzghon
maybe the tower of Babel was actually a restrictive IP regime... someone got copyright on the alphabet so someone else had to reverse-engineer to avoid licensing fees
You'd think with all the big issues facing the country something like this wouldn't pass the laugh test. Yet it's made it all the way to the Supreme Court.
If thoughts turn out to be patentable, then I'm going to be first in line to patent any sexual or obscene thought involving a virtualization of another human being, animal or farm implement used for or engaging in sexual activity, for the purpose of self-stimulation.
Then I'm going sue every one of you wankers on /. :) It'll give whole new meaning to the phrase "penny for your thoughts".
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Sony just lost another court case relating to the vibration feedback on the dual shock joysitck.
(The claim is that the eccentric wheel is attached directly to the stick not the case and that this is novel because it gives feedback directly to the stick).
I found a patent that match exactly the same feature, same linkages, same thing, an eccentric shake feeback mechanism on a joystick on an aircraft simulator from Fokker in 1980's. Yet Sony just lost another case, even though its the same thing only smaller.
The court assume the patent office has done its job.
As long as the patent office doesn't enforce novelty and non-obviousness, the same patents will keep coming up again and again and again and the courts will enforce each new one.
Thousands of people in the third world die every day because western corporations deny them the right to manufacture patented drugs, and they can't afford to buy them at our prices.
There have also been cases where drugs have been made unavailable at any price, because the patent holder has refused to manufacture them or license the patents. For example, Mifepristone (RU-486) was kept off the US market for a while because the patent holder was unwilling to sell a politically incorrect drug in the USA, and it took a lot of pressure to get them to license the patent.
So I'm afraid if a patent prevented you from getting vital medical aid, you would simply be allowed to die. That's the way US capitalism works.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I have a dream .....
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
The relationship between physical things, such as B12 and some disease is not an invention, it is an observation. Thinking that there is a relationship is not licensed, and therefore cannot be held as private works. Proving the relationship is, more or less, like writing a book. Once you've written it, no one else can claim they did it first. That still doesn't give anyone the right to say no one else can use that relationship, even for the length of a patent.
... the list goes on.
Thoughts are not inventions, and patent law does not apply. The reason for patent laws was to allow those who acted on their thoughts first to use them for some gain. There has to be an 'invention' for any patent to be issuable, and a discovery of how nature works is not an invention, just as no one can patent 'air' or gravity, no one can patent the relationship between two things that happens in nature.
An example: Many thought of powered flight, but it was the Wright brothers who did it. There is a show on cable lately about how Star Trek created the modern world, or many of the technologies in it, yet the show's creators and writers do not have patents on things like the ion drive, or medical technologies. If this is not smacked down HARD, it will be science fiction writers who own the world in the next century, and they will not be friendly to big business IMO.
Mr. Clarke gave us communications satellites (IIRC) and other science fiction writers would have dibs on tons of things that big business just can't get their minds around yet, like say... talking computers? Mining technologies? cures for diseases?
Once that is pointed out to the lawyers I think it will all die the quick death of "That was a fscking bad idea, fire the guy who thought of that"....
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
The USPTO has a page clearly explaining what can be patented:
A few choice excerpts:
In the language of the statute, any person who "invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent,"
The terms are then defined:
The word "process" is defined by law as a process, act or method, and primarily includes industrial or technical processes.
So "process" really means processes, and "acts" and "methods" as well.
The term "machine" used in the statute needs no explanation.
Gee, thanks for that "explanation".
Some more gems:
The term "manufacture" refers to articles which are made, and includes all manufactured articles.
These classes of subject matter taken together include practically everything which is made by man and the processes for making the products.
The term "useful" in this connection refers to the condition that the subject matter has a useful purpose
These guys really need a primer on "circular definitions".
I'll be happy to start them off: Circular definitions are definitions that are, ya know, circular.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
A more elegant solution: if you hold the patent on the diabetes gene, you should be held responsible for all cases of diabetes, treated or not.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I agree, and as far as I am concerned the publication of an article in the NYT that is so obviously full of factual errors exposes the editorial staff of what used to be a great newspaper as incompetant.Such ridiculous articles do nothing to further and in reality detract from efforts to promote real and needed patent reform.
r p_v_metab_1.html
The US patent process has some serious problems chief amoung them being the granting of business process patents and secondarily granting patents for material that does not actually constitute an invention. Congress should make it clear in patent reform legislation that a patent should only be granted for something novel and useful, and business proceses should not be covered. Software patents are an area of great abuse at present - many trivial ideas are being patented.
BTW, the following article describes in a much more cogent way the issues with this particular case than the Crichton editorial.
http://patentlaw.typepad.com/patent/2005/10/labco
I completely agree. I got into a major arguement earlier here on /. with a patent attorney over this very issue, and the conversation further convinced me of this concept.
Regardless of what endeavor of engineering I might participate in (and I do consider myself to be primarily an engineer), I fail to see any benefit at all to any kind of patent, including mechanical engineering... the classical example of patents.
I strongly consider patent attorneys to be simply fronts for a massive scam, and a modest revenue source for the U.S. Government. The expansion of patentable items is happening precisely because of the money that can be generated by this agency, which essentially pays for itself and even provides a modest surplus that doesn't need strict accounting, and can even be diverted to black ops if necessary. Talk about a conflict of interest on the part of the government here that is hearing the case.
Far too often I personnally know of people that have filed a patent, only to get themselves raked over the coals and have their "inventions" taken away anyway. A classical example is my grandfather, who patented about 30 different inventions and spent a minor fortune on attorney costs and filing fees for all that work. I think he got a total of about $2000 in royalties for all that work. One of his patents is explicitly cited as a fore-runner to Compact Discs (and subsequent technologies like the DVD) and developed encryption technologies that have been used by the NSA.
Unfortunately this is more of a typical example and not the exception. It is a very strong exception where a genuinely innovative concept is patented and a major company "buys" the patent and pays royalties to the inventor. Far too often a patent is filed strictly by a major company to protect themselves from any other idiot who also tries to file a competing patent that is subsequently accepted by the USPTO. The other use is to do a business negotiation where patents are "swapped", such as what happened with MPEG-4 and the DVD Forum (formerly the DVD Consortium).
The only practical benefit that I can see from patents right now is that they can preserve for future generations different techniques and manufacturing concepts, including assembly guidelines and how things are made. The problem with this attitude is that a typical patent application is so sparse that even somebody "learned in the art" can hardly recreate the patented process. They usually go into just enough detail to muddy the waters if there is an "infringement", and are so vague and interpreted so broadly by courts that you can't really even know if what you are doing violates a patent until after you have been slapped by a lawyer with a lawsuit.
Furthermore, engineers are explicitly told never to read any patents, under fear by management that they might "accidently" incorporate a patented idea into their design. So what is the real pratical benefit other than to keep a group of lawyers wealthy?
You are a certified, class A moron. Did you even try to understand what Crichton was saying? He's not arguing about whether the relationship has any clinical value or not; he's arguing that the patent should not have been granted.
It is you who is whining with a poorly-researched, poorly argued post.
I beg to differ.
"1) Scientific principles are not patentable."
Ah, but that is a technical point which has long since been circumvented by the reality. For all practical purposes scientific principles have been patentable since at least the 80s (XOR anyone?)
"Obviously Mr. Crichton has not been informed of the "all elements" rule."
This presumes that hypothetical item number 7 is not, itself, a claim.
"The genes themselves are not owned. A "product of nature" - a naturally occurring substance discovered in the wild - may not be patented per se.
"However, a method for extracting, isolating, and purifying a gene may be patentable."
Ok, so he's correct. then. Why is this on your list if he's correct? Or were you just not counting the technicality (because I assure you that the courts and drug companies are!
"But keep in mind that patents only last for 20 years - so these patented methods will be publicly available for free in less than 20 years."
20 years... give or take possible renewal and the massive impact that 20 years can have on innovation. Oh, and the fact that duplicate patents are routinely issued.
"And others are still free to find other methods of extraction."
And yet, since vague claims are granted, other methods are likely to infringe.
"Certainly Mr. Crichton can afford an introductory class in patent law."
I'm not sure that's the case, but I am sure that innovation is in one of two modes everywhere that I look now: a slow, cautious crawl, in an attempt to avoid getting sued; or a rapid, but questionable pace of innovating on top of IP that isn't owned by the innovator (e.g. open source software).
Unfortunately, there is a general disease in the US called the 'dollar'.
See, it's based on faith - specifically, the faith that the US can back up each dollar with something of equal value. What the US has of most value is 'intellectual property'.
Now, this IP is a bit tricky; there is no intrinsic physical property of it that prevents it from being copied. It's an item of real value that can be had for no value. Further, it costs money to create.
This is not lost on trade governance; it's what the four tiers of IP law are based on: Patents, Copyright, Trade Secrets, and Trademarks.
The primary goal of these laws is to provide compensation to authors while allowing for the creation of a large and robust public domain.
Of these, two are highly contested. Patents - granted monopoly rights for business use of an idea - and Copyright - granted monopoly rights for use, copying and distribution of a complete work.
Copyrights are contested primarily because of the length of time rights are granted: it has migrated from about 7 years to approximately 95 years or more, depending on the character of the copyright. Almost anyone except Disney corporation would agree that this is excessive, but no one seems to want to cross major rights holders (the RIAA and MPAA) and fix the problem.
Patents, on the other hand, have a twofold problem: First, you can patent almost anything that's not already in the patent system, even things that have actually been around for years, like hyperlinks. Second, for certain patents, they too are starting to exceed their original time limits (eg: medical patents can be renewed).
On the first point, there is a prior art clause that can be shown to invalidate a patent, however patent law is slowly inching from the current 'first to market' system to a 'first to file' system, in which these patents would be gospel.
Now that you know the issues on patents and copyrights, please write your congressmen to repeal these laws. They, uh, kill babies and maim pregnant women. They're all bad and stuff.
No, seriously, write them and ask them to change the laws to something a little more, you know, sensible.
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