Three University of Wisconsin Stem Cell Patents Rejected

eldavojohn writes "A non-profit alumni group from the University of Wisconsin (WARF) has suffered a preliminary ruling against three of their recent patents regarding stem cells. Given that these patents have been upheld in prior rulings, there is a lot of speculation that they will be upheld in a future court case. From the PhysOrg article: 'The patents, which cover virtually all stem cell research in the country, have brought in at least $3.2 million and could net much more money before they expire in 2015, the newspaper said. Companies wanting to study the cells must buy licenses costing $75,000 to $400,000. The newspaper said WARF recently started waiving the fees if the research is conducted at universities or by non-profit groups.' Should universities (or groups within universities) be allowed to hold patents and intellectual property while at the same time gaining donations and grants as an educational institution — or for that matter government funds?"

Comments

Why not?

[E IS mC(Square)]

"Should universities (or groups within universities) be allowed to hold patents and intellectual property while at the same time gaining donations and grants as an educational institution -- or for that matter government funds?"

Why not? I would prefer a university to hold a pattern any day than any corporate - at least, they are letting other NPOs and universities use it without charging.

In fact, give them more funding to do more research. Let them grab patterns before corporates get there first.

Re:Why not?

[mpapet]

I would prefer a university to hold a pattern any day than any corporate

You are operating under the assumption that a university will act differently (better) than the average corporation.

As this example points out, there is a direct link between patents and revenue generation for most universities. Why would a university miss an opportunity to generate revenue?

Re:Why not?

[john82]

GP: I would prefer a university to hold a pattern any day than any corporate

P: You are operating under the assumption that a university will act differently (better) than the average corporation.

Both of you hold the assumption that a university is not a corporation. Whether or not it has such a status in the legal sense is immaterial. In every other respect, universities are corporations. There are for-profit and not-for-profit examples. Some are good "corporate" citizens, and others are not. They produce product(s) and attempt to generate value for their stakeholders. But to think of universities (as a class) to be a less corruptible entity than corporations is delusional.

Corporations vs universities strikes me as a "distinction without a difference".

Reasons

[Stooshie]

The reasons given were that the patents were:

... obvious to one of ordinary skill ...

It seems to me that some business model patents and computer patents that were accepted should have been rejected for the same reasons.

Re:Reasons

[theantipop]

The level of ordinary skill varies depending on the art in question. You cannot make a fair judgment between these fields as the level of skill in biotech research is much higher than your standard fair programmer or business manager. The education levels and average expertise are leagues apart.

I apologize if you weren't trying to make this assumption, but it bears repeating regardless.

Gov't Funded Research Should Be Non-Patentable

[Skjellifetti]

I'm not too interested in the ethics or legality of obtaining patents from research funded by grants from non-governmental funding sources. That should be a contract item between the granter and grantee. But research results funded by government sources should be open and non-patentable. I've paid for the research once through my taxes. I should not have to pay for it again. Software developed using government funds should be open sourced using a BSD style license so that anyone can include it in either closed source or open source apps.

Re:Gov't Funded Research Should Be Non-Patentable

[Cheapy]

These patents bring money in to the university so they can continue to do research. This supports the research, and lets more research get done. The government doesn't give nearly enough money for all this research to happen without the help of money from patents.

Re:Gov't Funded Research Should Be Non-Patentable

[fimbulvetr]

Are you saying then that you don't need the governments support? If you don't, then decline it.

Re:Gov't Funded Research Should Be Non-Patentable

[Tilzs]

The government already funds all sorts of research in the form of defense contracts to corporate bidders. Those corporations can patent their innovations. You aren't going to see open source DoD funded missile guidance systems up on sourceforge any time soon.

Re:Gov't Funded Research Should Be Non-Patentable

[Checkmait]

I understand your point of view but I object to my tax dollars going to an organization which is collecting money through patent licenses. I have no problem with government-funded research or an increase in government funding for research, but if a research organization is going to patent their research (certainly not a very ethical practice [remember the genome patents]), then they lose their government funding and have to make their own money for research with their licensing.

p>It's the same with large companies such as MS or IBM (or smaller companies as in this case). We don't want the government handing out money to a corporation, such as one which engages in a lot of R&D, simply because they are doing research.

Re:Gov't Funded Research Should Be Non-Patentable

[Hoplite3]

Sure, they can make money this way, but what you're talking about is essentially a government granted monopoly on an idea used to subsidize research. This sort of monopoly has lots of hidden costs for the economy and an unknown benefit for the patent holder. Why not keep everything clear and open? Don't allow the patent. If they idea is really great, it should be easy for the research group that discovered it to get big grants in the future.

This is the Adam Smith warning all over again. Government granted monopolies seem like cheap ways of subsidizing desired activities (research, in this case), but they end up costing a fortune. It's like funding things on bond issuance. The government regularly gives money to the NSF and the NIH because science has a solid track record of providing big returns on the investment.

Locking up ideas in patetents like this is, to me, morally reprehensible too. It inhibits the free flow of ideas by regulating techniques, knowledge, and even the conclusions one can draw from data. I believe that the cost to society of the patent is too high. People invented things before they were granted monopolies, and they will continue to do so after those monopolies are removed. As the pace of innovation accelerates, more people encounter roadblocks caused by this unwise funding. And its exactly that they are paying for the discoveries of a past era through royalties now.

Intellectual property of all sorts is absurd. The idea could sink our culture.

Re:Gov't Funded Research Should Be Non-Patentable

[Frumious Wombat]

Or, my cynical, university-employed, side says, allows administrators to indulge their Edifice complexes with a pot of money lacking strings, while still demanding the science/engineering departments bring in more grant money so they can skim it for overhead. Stanford is not the only university that's been using "overhead" to panel and decorate the administrators' offices.

(disclaimer: TIME chosen because more authoritative publications are behind subscription firewalls; disclaimer 2: sour grapes due to working in facilities deemed "unsafe by modern standards for both teaching and research")

Re:Research Exemption?

[rhombic]

IANAL, but doesn't the Patent Research Exemption specifically mean that research does *not* require a license. Even companies can work on research and clinical trials and they don't need a licence as long as they don't begin commercial manufacture of the product within the patent term?

There is no such thing as non-profit research at a university today, at least not in the life sciences. The reasons that non-profits are licensing these things is because THEY want to patent their inventions, and sell them to industry. If they don't have a license for the original research they did, they won't be able to sell it in turn. When the federal government started to encourage universities to patent the results of research off of NIH and NSF grants, and charge licensing fees, the whole idea of non-profit basic research died a sad death. Uni's are just for-profit research entities today, teaching is nearly irrelevant (most faculty consider it a burden & waste of their time), the junior faculty don't get paid much, & the post-docs and grad students are essentially slave labor, but the Profs that bring in big grants & patents are paid as much if not more than an industry.

Re:Should universities...be allowed to hold patent

[OakLEE]

I would _not_ ever allow _anyone_ to hold _any_ patent in _any_ way related to human health and cure. Yes, I know what that would mean to "health" and drug companies. Drug Research is one of the few areas where I would support a strong patent regime. Your average drug today costs hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars to develop. There is simply no way for a company to recoup that money unless it gets exclusive rights to the manufacture and sale of that drug. In pharmaceutical discoveries were unpatentable, drug companies would have no incentive to invest in research. What's the point of spending a but load of cash to find the cure for cancer, when there are hundreds of generic producers waiting to copy your drug and undercut your margins?

As far as alternatives to the current patent regime, the only other solutions are either government directed research or large government prize rewards. Both of these have drawbacks that far outweigh the benefit of their implementation.

The problem with direct 100% government funding is that it creates an incentive to never actually finish work. Researchers would be loathed to find a cure if that cure meant that they were no longer needed and their funding would be cut off. As an illustration, look at the War on Drugs. Do you think the DEA and FBI would actually benefit if all illegal drugs were to suddenly stop entering the US? No, they would have their funding either capped or cut.

Direct prizes are problematic b/c they are inherently hard to value. At a proper prize would have to cover the cost of research plus a "healthy" profit to get companies to compete for it. The hard part here comes in determining the valuation. If the prize amount is set too low, no one will do research. If it is set too high, you effectively have society overpaying for the drug, the excess being the prize amount minus the minimum amount the winning company would have accepted. All of this guessing is eliminated in a patent regime, as the market will determine the amount spent on research, while the patent will effectively serve as "the carrot" for which the drug company will be awarded.