2009 Nobel Ribosome Structures — Patented

tabascoj writes 'The announcement of this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry is the latest reminder that fundamental components of biology are being increasingly, and aggressively, patented. A commentary, from yalepatents.org, focuses on the research and subsequent patents, held by Yale and Thomas Steitz, one of this year's laureates.'

Comments

How is this ethical?

[ground.zero.612]

Better yet, how can I patent my own DNA?

Re:How is this ethical?

[matt4077]

Maybe by investing 20 years of your life and millions of dollars to find something that will lead to a process that allows you to create antibiotics that save millions of lives. You can then patent that process and those antibiotics. For 20 years. Oh, and the royalties go to your employer who financed your research and will invest it into more research.

Yes, it's an evil evil broken system.

Re:How is this ethical?

[Evil Shabazz]

I would posit that patenting your research for commercial gain should exempt said research from Nobel Prize eligibility.. but that's just me. In Nobel's will, it's pretty clear his award was meant to encourage the advancement of mankind - not the advancement of a company's balance sheet. The two motives are pretty exclusive. Either you've done the research and are making it publicly available to all of mankind - or you are keeping it for yourself and only offering the benefits of the research to the select individuals who can afford it. If you're patenting it, your motive is profit.

Re:How is this ethical?

[matt4077]

How is that exclusive? Nobel himself patented dynamite, and only with that money could afford the prize, which certainly is a benefit to society. Anything a company legally sells is a benefit to society. If that cancer drug is not a benefit for the patient, would he (or his insurance) not buy it? If that tomato weren't a benefit for you, would you buy it? In any transaction that's not illegal (i. e. both sides are free to refuse to make it), both sides increase their utility. Of course there are exceptions (weapons), but the principle is the fundamental idea of capitalism. And while there are problems when capitalism is taken to the extreme, it's pretty obvious by now that well-regulated companies acting in their self-interest ultimately further mankind's goals.

Re:How is this ethical?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Nobel's will, it's pretty clear his award was meant to encourage the advancement of mankind - not the advancement of a company's balance sheet. The two motives are pretty exclusive.

Quick, someone get me an Ayn Rand scholar, stat

Re:How is this ethical?

[vux984]

it's pretty obvious by now that well-regulated companies acting in their self-interest ultimately further mankind's goals.

Sure. Well regulated companies might. But there lies the flaw. If the regulations were working properly companies wouldn't be patenting the fruits of basic research nor stuff they just found in nature. These are not well regulated companies. And the fact that they have lobby groups the size of congress, with budgets to match, helps ensure the regulations stay broken.

Re:How is this ethical?

[ultranova]

Maybe by investing 20 years of your life and millions of dollars to find something that will lead to a process that allows you to create antibiotics that save millions of lives. You can then patent that process and those antibiotics.

The question here is should you be able to patent the DNA itself? You didn't design it, in fact you had nothing whatsoever to do with its existence, you merely figured out how it worked - which took 20 years and millions of dollars. Obviously that effort should be rewarded, and just as obviously you can't possibly own a (very important) part of me, this not being ancient Greece or not-so-ancient USA.

Anyway, I don't think that Nobel prices should be given for patented work. After all, the whole point of the price is to reward improving humanity, but patents already supposedly do this.

Re:How is this ethical?

[Volante3192]

The question here is should you be able to patent the DNA itself?

That is not the question here, though. They've patented a method to analyze ribosomes, not the ribosomes themselves.

Anyway, I don't think that Nobel prices should be given for patented work.

So, if I go check out the thread on the physics prize ( http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/10/06/1427237/Father-of-Fiber-Optics-Wins-Nobel-Prize ) I should see this argument there too?

Anyway, everything is going to be patented now regardless. Due to how cutthroat companies are, researchers have to patent simply to defend their work from people that might eventually troll them. Maybe if the patent system actually worked, you might have a case to make there, but unfortunatly researchers have to think about their work on a legal standing these days, too.

Re:How is this ethical?

[santiagodraco]

It has nothing to do with motive, it has to do with effect. If it benefits mankind it qualifies. Who cares if the person profits from it at the same time? Would you begrudge someone recognition just because it profits them in some way?

That's a sure way to cut back on advancement several tens of years or more.

Re:How is this ethical?

[s73v3r]

Capitalism does not work in humanity's best interests. It works in the best interests of itself. Occasionally those interests may overlap, but not very often.

Re:How is this ethical?

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet, how can I patent my own butt?

There- fixed it for you.

Re:How is this ethical?

[shovas]

Ask yourself again if it's an evil broken system when you're on your deathbed for lack of medicine that could have been developed and manufactured cheaply had it not been for prohibitive licensing and monopolistic practices surrounding these patents.

This has already happened and continues to happen in other areas of medicine.

But "it's not my problem" and "it doesn't affect me"...yet.

There is nothing but shame in this.

Re:How is this ethical?

[Kizeh]

Even if it was funded with taxpayer money? Even if the patent prevents or significantly hinders companies and other universities from furthering the research?

Re:How is this ethical?

[Bazar]

No capitalism doesn't work FOR humanity's best interests, however that doesn't mean their work doesn't further the advances of humanity.

Thinking of some of the greatest inventions of last century, the light-bulb or automobile. Both were made by great inventors, both drastically changed the world, both were made with profits in mind, and both had patents on their inventions.

Anyone who thinks that its wrong to make money for advanced research should get a clue on how the world works.
The same can be said for anyone who instantly assumes that all patents should be worthless.

Re:How is this ethical?

[Anonymous Coward]

//SNIP// In any transaction that's not illegal (i. e. both sides are free to refuse to make it), both sides increase their utility. Of course there are exceptions (weapons), but the principle is the fundamental idea of capitalism. .

Weapons an exception?!?!?
Self preservation and protection of one's property certainly seem to have utility to me.

Re:How is this ethical?

[portforward]

Anyway, I don't think that Nobel prices should be given for patented work.

Um, winners of the prize in Literature don't all of the sudden have to turn their works over to the Public Domain. Why is this different?

Re:How is this ethical?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who patented the automobile?

Re:How is this ethical?

[bmorton]

George Selden did.

Re:How is this ethical?

[Canberra Bob]

It has nothing to do with motive, it has to do with effect. If it benefits mankind it qualifies. Who cares if the person profits from it at the same time? Would you begrudge someone recognition just because it profits them in some way?

That's a sure way to cut back on advancement several tens of years or more.

Many on here would. It reminds me of a saying: a capitalist and a socialist are walking down the street and a man drives past in his Ferrari. The capitalist says "I hope one day I have a Ferrari like him", the socialist says "I hope one day he has to walk like me".

Re:How is this ethical?

[cryptolemur]

It has nothing to do with motive, it has to do with effect. If it benefits mankind it qualifies. Who cares if the person profits from it at the same time? Would you begrudge someone recognition just because it profits them in some way?

That's a sure way to cut back on advancement several tens of years or more.

Seriously, though, patent has a good change of cutting back the advancement in form of limiting further use, study and development. And profit is a symptom of resources not being used optimally.
In other words, you advocate both artificial limits to and wastage of resources as beneficial to mankind?

Re:How is this ethical?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you want to? All the bits of your DNA which work will be common to most people (and most other primates). If your DNA was completely unique you would probably just be a pile of goo.

Re:How is this ethical?

[TheTurtlesMoves]

When i was working with a Grant from the NIH, I was expressly forbidden to get a patent on any of the work we did.

When a university or company say they want to be rewarded for the 20Million invested, that is often Public funds from the taxpayer... Who now must pay more for the next step of the work cus the methods to study it are now patented.

Re:How is this ethical?

[mspohr]

Better yet, how can I patent my own DNA?

Don't worry about it... someone else already has patented it... you need to pay up or they will disconnect your DNA.

Re:How is this ethical?

[Hognoxious]

And profit is a symptom of resources not being used optimally.

So a factory sitting idle (making zero profit) is how efficient? 100%? Infinity?

Re:How is this ethical?

[Hognoxious]

Because corpra$hun$ are teh vul, that's why. Didn't you get the memo?

Re:How is this ethical?

[Hognoxious]

You'd prefer a system where the medicine doesn't exist, because there was no incentive to develop it? Well I suppose that's "fairer", at least.

Re:How is this ethical?

[Jedi Alec]

It has nothing to do with motive, it has to do with effect. If it benefits mankind it qualifies. Who cares if the person profits from it at the same time? Would you begrudge someone recognition just because it profits them in some way?

That's a sure way to cut back on advancement several tens of years or more.

Many on here would. It reminds me of a saying: a capitalist and a socialist are walking down the street and a man drives past in his Ferrari. The capitalist says "I hope one day I have a Ferrari like him", the socialist says "I hope one day he has to walk like me".

Congratulations. You have officially been indoctrinated!

Now, the socialist *might* argue that that same money could have been used to get all 3 of them a car instead so none of them would have to walk in the first place. But I guess US cable news doesn't go too heavy on the nuance.

Re:How is this ethical?

[mea37]

"Either you've done the research and are making it publicly available to all of mankind - or you are keeping it for yourself and only offering the benefits of the research to the select individuals who can afford it."

By patenting the invention, you are (1) motiviating a company to fund the research, (2) publishing the designs for your inventino, and (3) ensuring that after about 20 years anyone will be free to follow those designs with or without your approval or profit.

That may not do as much for mankind as you would like to think we would get were everyone an altruist, but in the real world the alternative is that the invention waits uninvented. (You are not going to create a bioengineered cancer drug without expensive equipment - i.e. without deep pockets funding you.)

Now specifically talking about medical research in the U.S., I do firmly believe the system is broken - but that would be the healthcare system, not the patent system. The wide disparity between brand and generic pricing for drugs is a symptom of a broader problem, and trying to skip the brand phase for new medicines will only change symptoms without addressing the root cause.

(And no, I'm not suggesting that a so-called public option solves it either... but I digress.)

The Nobel Prize should recognize and honor the acheivement, end of story. The acheivement will further mankind in due course.

Re:How is this ethical?

[PingPongBoy]

Profits may motivate patents, and patents and profits may motivate difficult research, but one has to wonder along this tangent: if the result promises to be very beneficial, would the research be done well enough to obtain the result? Not that this is an argument against patents and profit (we wouldn't have such a nice world without patents to urge investment in inventiveness). As an insight to the motivations that we have, many of the Nobel awards were for efforts that were made without followup patents. For challenges that are great enough, there will be people to attack them.

Re:How is this ethical?

[davebooth]

Patent the antibiotic, sure.. but the ribosome structure never. Discoveries and natural properties, as opposed to inventions, are explicitly excluded from patentability in the law so pretty much all those "patents on genes" and "patents on naturally occurring proteins" are ripe for challenge. Now if you use the knowledge thus discovered to create novel compounds that interact with it in specific ways, like the antibiotics mentioned then sure, go ahead and file the patent on what you made. If you take a naturally occurring protein and find a novel therapeutic use for it go ahead and patent that.. Where I have a problem with it is that the patent is being used as a blunt instrument to prevent anyone else working on other applications of what you discovered. NOT the way its supposed to work.

Re:How is this ethical?

[sjames]

Of course the Nobel Prize was his way of atoning for what he saw as a great wrong that came from his invention... And, of course, he was not awarded the Nobel Prize for his patented invention!

If I can't afford that cancer medication, then as far as I'm concerned it might as well not exist. No effective benefit exists. Much of the world struggles to afford even generic drugs.

Re:How is this ethical?

[sjames]

The automobile existed for decades before it made any impact on the world at all. It's impact was delayed until it was made affordable. At no time was a dying person told that if they could afford a car they might live, but since they can't....

Re:How is this ethical?

[Canberra Bob]

That same money? You mean the money that the socialist did not work for? The problem here illustrates the sense of entitlement socialism breeds - they want the world but someone else has to provide it to them.

Re:How is this ethical?

[JLF65]

That same money? You mean the money that the socialist did not work for? The problem here illustrates the sense of entitlement socialism breeds - they want the world but someone else has to provide it to them.

The guy driving the Ferrari almost certainly didn't work for the money used to buy the car (thousands of "peons" in "Daddy's" company did), and it's a virtual certainty he has a FAR greater sense of entitlement than ANY socialist... probably greater than ALL socialists put together.

Re:How is this ethical?

[Canberra Bob]

I rest my case. The first reply had an interesting point that could raise some discussions - I personally don't agree with him or her but there is merit to their point of view. You on the other hand are a perfect match for the socialist in the example - trying to pull down anyone more successful than you are because they "almost certainly didn't work for the money".

Re:How is this ethical?

[Jedi Alec]

That same money? You mean the money that the socialist did not work for? The problem here illustrates the sense of entitlement socialism breeds - they want the world but someone else has to provide it to them.

Who says he didn't work for it? One argument you will often see come up is that our society currently rewards certain occupations in a disproportionate manner relative to the actual work done and the contribution made to society. To name some extreme examples (just to get the point across), the CEO of a corporation that spends its time doing all the kind of things we like to rant about on slashdot makes millions and gets to drive aforementioned Ferrari, whereas people that have pitiful careers like, say, nursing or teaching or enforcing the law have to walk...

Now I'll be the first to admit that there is an entire spectrum of gray between the corrupt CEO on one end and the idealist underpaid teacher on the other. Nevertheless I feel the Ferrari example I originally replied to was a poor strawman at best, and a typical example of US boogeyman thinking at best.

Note: please don't bring up the whole "if the teacher wanted to make more money he should have picked a different career" argument. We as a society get to decide how much we value those who educate our children, enforce our laws and put out our fires. If we all agree that these people really aren't worth all that much, fair enough, but let's not act surprised when the next generation turns out to be stupid, corrupt and on fire.

Re:How is this ethical?

[Canberra Bob]

You make a good point - then cheapen it by calling dissenting opinion a strawman argument. Let's refrain from the name calling shall we? :)

I totally agree with you that there is a lot of gray in between the extremes. I also don't believe that the points:
1) if a teacher wanted more they should have chosen a different career - a point I agree with
and
2) teachers are underpaid as are a lot of essential services to society - a point I also agree with.
The two points above are not mutually exclusive. If someone aims to make a lot of money in their career it can hardly be argued that choosing teaching would be a smart move - that's just an unfortunate fact of life. However this is not mutually exclusive from the idea that teachers are underpaid and should be paid more - not Ferrari more but certainly more so as to attract the best quality. I personally believe essential services should be owned by the government and staff should be paid according to their value to society, thus attracting quality people for positions that require them. I also believe that on the free market outside essential services the sky should be the limit.

To achieve superior financial success eg. owning a Ferrari, requires far above average work and risk to the average person (leaving out people who inherited the money or won it in a lottery). So it is fitting that they should be rewarded well above and beyond the averge person. Also not all financially successful people are corrupt - a generalisation just as nonsensical as saying all teachers are paedophiles. Many people did become successful (when using the term I am talking about financial success in this context) through extreme hard work, a fact the leftists tend to overlook and instead emphasise only the bad ones, who you will find most people on either side of the fence would prefer we did without.

Re:How is this ethical?

[Hurricane78]

You forgot, that the goal of every life-form is, to once become "all of mankind". ^^

Includes companies.

This is sick!

[Finallyjoined!!!]

I'm going to go down there & patent shit, then sue any sod that has a crap.

What's the world coming to?

Re:This is sick!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's unethical, and unconstitutional. Eventually someone will challenge it and it will go before the supreme court, and if we're lucky the patents will be nullified.

Re:This is sick!

[Finallyjoined!!!]

Unfortunately we won't. Too much wonga to be made by Corporations.

Re:This is sick!

[couchslug]

"I'm going to go down there & patent shit, then sue any sod that has a crap."

I'm sure I can dig up prior art.

Re:This is sick!

[s73v3r]

It's unethical, and unconstitutional.

Exactly why he's going to succeed.

Re:This is sick!

[Anonymous Coward]

You speak Hutt?

I don't understand...

[Thantik]

How can you patent something that nature already patented itself millions of years ago? Hasn't the patent run out yet?!

Re:I don't understand...

[buchner.johannes]

... cover not only the process for determining the structure of the molecules, but also the computation used to design new antibiotics.

You can not patent ideas or discoveries. But you can patent applications/machines. And if you live in a weird country, algorithms.

Re:I don't understand...

[wizardforce]

It takes significant R&D to determine these structures and it seems that the patent office considers the discovery of a pre-existing biological component to be deserving of protection as much as a designed system for that very reason. It's indicative that we really should get around to reforming the patent system.

Re:I don't understand...

[erroneus]

It takes even more to visit other planets. Should Mars become the patented intellectual property of the people running the Mars rover program?

The significant R&D is irrelevant to the patent process. A guy inventing things at his kitchen table with coat hanger wire is more eligible for a patent than someone who discovers the workings of nature.

We should reform the patent system.

Re:I don't understand...

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article:
  "Some of these patents, held by Yale in the name of the prize-winner Thomas Steitz and others, cover not only the process for determining the structure of the molecules, but also the computation used to design new antibiotics."

This is not a patenting ribosome this is patenting a method to get ribosome crystals and drug design pipeline. Multiple labs do ribosome crystallography each of the are using it is own way to get crystals. There is no harm in this patent, really. There a "ribosome patent". Relax:)

Re:I don't understand...

[TooMuchToDo]

the patent office

The US patent office. Mind you, if you're in a country that doesn't respect WTO/US patents, it doesn't matter.

Re:I don't understand...

[sarduwie]

You are too relaxed and therefore incoherent. :) But you make a point. :)

Re:I don't understand...

[matt4077]

It takes even more to visit other planets. Should Mars become the patented intellectual property of the people running the Mars rover program?

That's basically how the American West was explored: you take the risk of going there, if you survive, you own a piece of land. And ownership last forever, unlike patents that expire after 20 years.

Re:I don't understand...

[buswolley]

yeah.

You know I think the nobel prize should only be given for things that are non-patentable, and have been opensourced.

Re:I don't understand...

[s73v3r]

He said, forgetting the exploitations of the native peoples that where there before the settlers.

Re:I don't understand...

[syousef]

It takes even more to visit other planets. Should Mars become the patented intellectual property of the people running the Mars rover program?

Don't give the greedy fuckers any ideas!

Re:I don't understand...

[Hognoxious]

There isn't a Nobel prize for software.

Re:I don't understand...

[Hognoxious]

You believe it already belongs to allah.

Re:I don't understand...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can not patent ideas or discoveries.

I am sorry that I must say that you are wrong. In the European Union patent law was changed in 2005 to exactly allow for this.
Here is the text added to paragraph 1 of the German patent law:

"Biologisches Material, das mit Hilfe eines technischen Verfahrens aus seiner natürlichen
Umgebung isoliert oder hergestellt wird, kann auch dann Gegenstand einer Erfindung sein,
wenn es in der Natur schon vorhanden war."

In English: you can patent any biological material occuring in nature, provided you have made your discovery with technical means.
This is outraging, of course, but that is the law in the EU.

Re:I don't understand...

[jvkjvk]

And ownership last forever, unlike patents that expire after 20 years.

Tell that to the authorities if you stop paying property taxes, or to the people who have had their land siezed due to emminent domain laws.

Ownership lasts as long as you can defend it, even today.

Regards.

Re:I don't understand...

[buswolley]

There is an open-source like movement for scientific discovery. http://www.openscience.org/blog/

Not Very Noble

[sexconker]

Insert tired old joke about Nobel/Noble.

In Nobel's own words:
"The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind."

Seems to me someone shouldn't win for doing something that benefits their pocket books first, and mankind second.

Angry emails to the Nobel Foundation, GO!

Postal address: The Nobel Foundation
P.O. Box 5232, SE-102 45 Stockholm, Sweden
Street address: Sturegatan 14, Stockholm
Tel. +46 (0)8 663 09 20
Fax +46 (0)8 660 38 47
E-mail info@nobel.se
comments@nobelprize.org

Re:Not Very Noble

[dmartin]

Except that from the quote form Nobel, the benefit to pockets of the inventors does not factor into it.

The piece of the sentence

"The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes

states that
    i) that the prize should be distributed annually
  ii) some logistics dealing with the estate.

So Nobel's statement is, in essence, that we should give the Nobel prize to those who, in the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind.

In comparing two discoveries we need to compare their relative benefit to mankind; the benefit of the individual is completely and utterly irrelevant. That is, it is irrelevant if the individual (or individuals) benefited more than mankind as a whole; nor does it matter when comparing the two discoveries which group made "more" out of their discovery pre-Nobel prize. Nobel's sentiment is solely concerned with the benefit to mankind.

To be blantent and explicit about it, pretend for a moment that "benefit" was an actual quantifiable measure. It is not, but we can still look at the logical structure of the statement. If we have two discoveries A and B with
A: mankind benefit: 500 personal gain: 800
B: mankind benefit: 505 personal gain: 2000
then "B" has greater benefit to mankind of these two discoveries. The last column is completely irrelevant. (BTW, personal gain will probably always exceed mankind benefit as the scientists gain the same benefit you or I would, plus whatever recognition etc. in their field, other prizes, awards, grants, etc. The only way I could see personal gain being less is if the personal sacrafices involved were worse than all the other benefits to the individual).

If you wish to argue that a patented discovery lessens the value to mankind as a whole, by all means go ahead. But the argument that you have presented simply does not hang together -- Nobel makes no comment (at least with the quote you have provided) about the discoverer's personal gain.

PS. If you did want to argue about something mentioned in Nobel's statement, it is that Nobel prizes typically don't go within a year of a device conferring the greatest benefit to mankind.

Re:Not Very Noble

[migla]

Reminds me of the BSD/GPL license discussion. I like GPL. Nobel would maybe have been in the BSD-type camp?

Re:Not Very Noble

[Anonymous Coward]

Jonas Salk discovered and gave away the Polio Vaccine for free - everyone thought he was crazy because he could have patented it and made bank.

Patenting things like this disgusts me.

Re:Not Very Noble

[lennier]

"Insert tired old joke about Nobel/Noble."

This one?

""The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind using exclusively Nobel patented premium explosive products such as Dynamite(tm), Gelignite(tm), or a Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft cannon."

Now that would be a fun Prize.

Re:Not Very Noble

[s73v3r]

The thing is, does locking down a discovery so only one company can actually use it reduce the benefit to mankind? Many people would say yes.

Re:Not Very Noble

[Anonymous Coward]

The OP is quite obviously saying that if the winners or nominees put their wallet first, then humankind is getting less than the greatest benefit from the discovery. You can try to argue semantics and the letter of the will, but at the VERY least, in the spirit of the prize, and in the spirit of helping out humankind, it's a dick move.*

Since you seem to want debate, I'll finish sexconker's argument: patenting any technology automatically raises the barriers to entry for all those wishing to use the technology to benefit humankind.

With the price tag on patenting alone, you need investors with capital, and you can be sure those investors want a handsome return. If the group wanted the technology in the public domain, they could just do what Bell Labs did, and send them a document detailing it to establish prior art if someone tried to patent it later.

Again, to be "blatant and explicit about it": if some group decides to patent something, they conferring less of a benefit to humankind than if they established prior art and did not patent.

These sort of profit-motivated dick moves are everywhere. Another recent one? The "safeplugs" presented at TED. At the end of the presentation, the presenter proudly mentions they have 400+ patents pending on the plugs. How much would it cost to file all those patents, even on the cheap? I can't say for sure, but I imagine a whole freaking hell of a lot. Does anyone think the investors will take a loss on that one? When someone asked, in the followup thread, about the cost of licensing, a spokesman assured him the cost would be "reasonable." Of course! What other sort of price would a monopolist--that delayed saving children and planet so they could file 400 patents--set? Those patents don't file themselves, you know!

*No, the incentive argument for state-granted monopoly rights do NOT make it less of a dick move.

Re:Not Very Noble

[Hognoxious]

The excerpt you quoted says nothing at all about personal enrichment.

Re:Not Very Noble

[Hognoxious]

One company using it still gives more benefit to mankind than none, which would be the case if there was no incentive to do the research in the first place.

Or do you have some ingenious solution to the freeloader problem? Send us a postcard from Stockholm...

Re:Not Very Noble

[Anonymous Coward]

PS. If you did want to argue about something mentioned in Nobel's statement, it is that Nobel prizes typically don't go within a year of a device conferring the greatest benefit to mankind.

Well, it takes some time for a novelty to make a trail of benefit. Some advances are too ... advanced to be utilized for most gain too early, e.g. triode. Also, some "great expectations" were betrayed, e.g. magnetic bubble memory. Some are great but seem to never gain much acceptance and opportunity to produce the said benefit, probably because of too much anal-ness of its patent holders. Nobel be damned, if we can't get most of its benefits, then none will!

Re:Not Very Noble

[sexconker]

Setting up a barrier to access that contribution to mankind is antithetical to the goal of benefiting all of mankind.

Re:Not Very Noble

[dmartin]

As I wrote at the end of my post it is fine to argue that patents lessen the benefit to mankind as a whole. That is a fine argument and can be supported.

However it is disingenuous to provide a quote that says one thing and present it as saying another. The quote does not mention the benefit to the inventor, except in the trivial sense that (depending on your definition*) their benefit may be part of mankind's benefit. We should also recognise that they are not penalised for the benefits they did not provide, so it is sort of irrelevant to argue that they could have done more (by not patenting) than they did. What the quote from Nobel instructs us to do is to compare the actual things they did to the actual things that others did in that year, and evaluate which of the things actually done confers the greatest benefit to mankind.

If discovery X bestows the most benefit to mankind out of all the discoveries that year, even factoring in the patent, then it is not relevant (at least within the context of the quote provided) that even more benefit could be provided by not patenting.

That is not to say that I agree with the patenting process. I am simply saying that the quote provided does not say what is presented here. If people instead wish to point out that the negative effects of patents are systematically being ignored or uncdervalued by the committee have that argument -- and we can support that arguments on the merits bought forward. If you want to argue that patents in Chemistry and Biology are always detrimental, then we can have that discussion.

All I am against here is taking one statement, out of context, and then claiming it says something it does not. There are issues worth debating here, but let us argue them accurately and consistently.

How

[Dyinobal]

How in the world do you patent something like this. I expect the people at the patent office see the patent request and are like "What the hell is this?" then a few guys pass it around and all decided they dunno what it is. So they shrug "Must be new" out comes the patent approved stamp!

Re:How

[matt4077]

How in the world do you complain about something like this. I expect the people at slashdot see the patent and are like "Micro$soft suxxx and I want my stuff for free?" then a few guys pass it around and all decided they dun like it. So they shrug "Must be evil" out comes the +5 insightful post!

Re:How

[matt4077]

With less sarcasm: the ribosome is not patented. It's using the knowledge about it to create drugs using specific methods that is. Yes, it'd be great if it all were free for all, but this is arguably why the patent system was created: it's very important research, even basic research that could never be fully financed by patent royalties. It's important that some of the certainly large financial gains the drug companies made with this discovery (a lot of antibiotics target the ribosome and were discovered using the patented processes) go to the institutions that financed the risky 20-year gamble in the first place. Being in the hands of a research organization, any money will be devoted to future research.

Re:How

[rodarson2k]

The problem with this patent is enforement. How can they prove that you used the Steitz ribosome structure to design your new drug and not, say, the Cate structure, or the Ramashandran structure? If anything, real science would be utilizing all of the available data, comparing and contrasting bacterial and human ribosomes to determine which sites are relevant for antibiotics.

The coordinates are publicly available, anyway, so I could run MD on the structure for 1 picosecond and i would have "my" structure, which would be an interesting legal case in its own right.

I can't find the time to read the entire patent, but in the abstract, the "methods" they claim are used on a daily basis by groups around the world. And have been for the better part of four years.

Re:How

[ajs]

I looked for this because I didn't want to post redundantly, but there's more that needs to be said, here: I'm no fan of bad patents, but Slashdot has mis-posted about patents time and time again. It's time that the Slashdot editors start doing some basic (and I mean 2 minutes tops) fact-checking of these articles:

1. Does the submitted article claim that a basic process or natural phenomenon is being patented while the source article claims that it's the process around utilizing these that has been covered? This happens at least 1-2 times per week.

2. Does the article misleadingly only discuss one or a small minority of claims from a patent which has far more?

3. Is the article based only on the patent abstract? Does it even claim that a lawyer has reviewed its interpretation?

4. Is the patent a design patent, and not a process or mechanism patent at all?

If any one of the above is true, it should be noted before posting to the main page.

If more than one of the above is true, then it's simply not worth the confusion of posting to the main page.

Re:How

[lennier]

"this is arguably why the patent system was created: it's very important research, even basic research that could never be fully financed by patent royalties."

This sentence no sense make. The patent system was created to finance research which patents could never fully finance?

Re:How

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's important that some of the certainly large financial gains the drug companies made with this discovery"

Except they can shut down said drug companies or smaller companies via a mini-cooperative trust, so new drugs or competing drugs aren't released. If someone was smart, they'd buy the patent, then sue the socks off any competitor or threaten litigation to gobble up the novel small company coming up with a new treatment.

"Yes, it'd be great if it all were free for all, but this is arguably why the patent system was created: it's very important research, even basic research that could never be fully financed by patent royalties."

A familiar variation of "only the big boys can pay to play."

I disagree with you. The patent system was created for reasons directly counter to what you suggest. It's current incarnation is at odds with its past, as the current reason for its existence is to bolster economic numbers, in addition to dependence on deeper pockets creating that system.

I do independent research. Much of the equipment and material is overpriced. The reason is because there is a patent market combined with government sponsorship, which drives up prices. Many, many DNA products should have come down in price, but nowadays, a small test tube of stuff that was released years ago still costs $343. So if you're like me, you can't afford it. Meanwhile, some nitwit on a government grant buys massive quantities, takes your idea, and then shits out a couple of papers to make further grant requests actionable.

So the smaller players like myself end up competing for people willing to pay high prices for materials, because those people are spending your money, not their own. It's a science aristocracy created and kept there by economics.

I'm reminded of a patent I came across a few years ago by NASA from Goddard. Pretty cool, use a microscope to pick up on smaller scales, essential rulers from micromanipulation work. I came up with the idea 4 years later alone, did a patent search, found I would be violating. Contacted NASA, waited 2 months to find the correct contact, 2 months for the contact to initially get back to me, 3 months to get the forms forwarded. 7 months of just waiting, then found out it has to go to committee to be reviewed before a contract might be granted.

So, the microlathe and EDM machine I had designed were, well, never released. The alternative scales would have made be incurred more breakage, dependent on a competitor, and put me on the same price point as the professional models.

Similarly, I had a project that wanted to use PBI in a fuel cell. Turns out the group who developed it patented the use, then sold it, and then was bought out by BASF. BASF in turn had a page to contact them, which sounded nice too because they want to license (supposedly). After numerous emails which went unanswered, and phone calls not returned, I finally got into contact with someone, who then informed me they don't really deal with individual researchers.

I have several others I've encountered over the years. One, a raw material, contacted sales, finally got through, and then the salesperson disappeared on me, wouldn't return calls. Tried to find an alternative, find a researcher, found his source, which was the original source I had contacted. Apparently, if you build a superconducting magnet, they'll sell to you, but if you want to buy the same shit for your own metalworking needs, tough. The raw material, to buy at that purity, is through a patented process.

Another, stirling engine using minimal moving parts? Patented. Gerotor? If I recall, the mathematics for efficient design, patented.

I spend more time working around patents than making shit. If I want to patent, which I don't but have certainly looked into, a larger company likely will squash me like a bug and take my idea.

Is this the great financial and idea system that is fair and equitable? Before you posted, did you have actual experience dealing with large companies and funding? I don't think so.

patents...

[wizardforce]

New rule: you can not patent anything that you yourself did not create. No patents should be granted for any component of a naturally occuring system. Create an entirely novel system that doesn't exist in nature? Fine, have at it. On a separate note, it seems to me that with all the trouble we seem to be having with our 200+ year old patent system, that we ought to be able to devise a better system for encouraging innovation.

Re:patents...

[Mendokusei]

That has always been the rule. A naturally occuring phenomena is what is known as a "judicial exception," and is not eligible for patent protection.

Re:patents...

[Random2]

New rule: you can not patent anything that you yourself did not create.

So, does that mean I can patent my children? Maybe they'll give me a Nobel peace prize for it too.

Re:patents...

[Anonymous Coward]

we ought to be able to devise a better system for encouraging innovation.

There is a better system available. Nobody knows what it is, though. It has, unfortunately, been protected as a trade secret.

Re:patents...

[toppavak]

Don't give them ideas! At least patents eventually expire now.

Re:patents...

[Em Emalb]

But what if I event a new way of viewing something?

SLOWDOWN COWBOY, EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVEN'T POSTED IN AN HOUR OR SO, WE'RE GONNA SAY IT'S BEEN 18 SECONDS CAUSE YOU MIGHT BE TROLLING OUR SITE! OH NOES!

Re:patents...

[matt4077]

New rule: you can not comment on something you didn't even bother to read. It's processes to find or design antibiotics targeting the ribosome that were patented, not the ribosome itself. You're creating millions of ribosomes each second, and you haven't been sued yet, have you?

Re:patents...

[baKanale]

Old rule: This is Slashdot. Nobody ever RTFA's. It's tradition.

Re:patents...

[agbinfo]

I still disagree with patents but that's the best argument for patents I've ever seen.

Re:patents...

[selven]

So when they have sex they have to pay you royalties?

Re:patents...

[melikamp]

I believe that patents reduce the total utility of discoveries for the society. Instead of rewarding past inventors with monopolies, we should reward future inventors with grants. The decision to reward a researcher with a grant should be based on many relevant factors, among them the history, the standing, the proposal. All know-how should be in the public domain, period.

The outcome would be better in every respect. Inventors would still be encouraged by monetary prizes (to what degree, no one can compute anyway) and fully compensated for their research. The public would benefit greatly compared with the current system. When it comes to inventions which increase an acknowledged public good (like drugs or infrastructure improvements), this system would clearly be more ethical, as the goodies would be available to anyone for the price it takes to manufacture them. And all around, the prices of goods would come down due to the cut-throat competition among the manufacturers.

Will manufacturers themselves stop to innovate? Impossible. Introducing a novel device or a feature ahead of your competitors and so gaining the momentum on the free market would be just as valuable as it is right now.

Take everyone's favorite example of an area where the research is said to be too costly to conduct without patents: drugs. I call major bullshit. We, consumers, end up compensating big pharma in full for all research, all marketing, and, if rumors are true, all the coke they blow with their monopoly money. On top of that, whenever they get distracted from developing "anti-aging" shit (not very often) and come out with a life-saving drug, only the rich can afford it. It happens all the time: they make all their money back, and they only sell it to the rich. Does anyone really believe that we will pay more, as a society, if we pay for the research in advance?

Patent law has merit in a society like early USA, where skilled manufacturers are extremely rare and monopoly is local by necessity, because a global monopoly is logistically impossible. We live in a different world. In our world of super-powerful corporations, global monopolies run rampant with or without exclusive rights protected by the government, while skilled manufacturers and researchers are dime-a-dozen.

I guess, my main point is Eben Moglen's point too: there is no such thing as shortage of innovation when the Internet is cheap. All "intellectual property" laws are utter crap: they benefit only the ultra-rich, while everyone else gets hosed, with one possible exception of the trademark law.

Re:patents...

[Anonymous Coward]

New rule: you can not patent anything that you yourself did not create. No patents should be granted for any component of a naturally occuring system. Create an entirely novel system that doesn't exist in nature? Fine, have at it. On a separate note, it seems to me that with all the trouble we seem to be having with our 200+ year old patent system, that we ought to be able to devise a better system for encouraging innovation.

You going to patent that?

Re:patents...

[Anonymous Coward]

So where does this magical pool of money for grants come from? Public money? So now the government gets to decide what inventions are worth pursuing, and who should be allowed to invent? Sounds like a great idea - should really advance things. Also, since your great idea drives prices down, where is this public money coming from (hint, when people aren't making money, they aren't paying taxes).

The only way, without patents, that manufacturers can have 'valuable' inventions and stay ahead of their competitors is if the competitors don't know how to do the same thing. That means all that knowledge is trade secrets, and does not benefit anyone except the inventor, ever. Exactly the thing that patents attempt to solve.

You write that consumers end up paying for research that like is some great revelation. Exactly who do you think will pay under your great scheme? Does the money just magically appear? In the next sentence you complain that 'only the rich' can buy their stuff, so which is it, are 'all consumers' paying, or only the rich?

Re:patents...

[Vesvvi]

That's BS, and you should know it.

Here are two of the related patents: 1, 2.

They claim the structure itself, which is only possible due the legal loopholes which permit patenting biological information because it was in a "useful form", like purified DNA. By my count, the clock should have started running on that claim back in the 50s. They describe the use of the structure, to work with antibiotic modeling etc, as an embodiment of their invention, but that is not the real focus of the invention.

The patent itself should make it obvious that they aren't patenting a process or antibiotic: in the text check "D. Methods of Using the Atomic Coordinates of the 50S Ribosomal Subunit to Identify and Design Ligands of Interest". They cite tired old references such as "Molecular Modeling on the PC, 1998, John Wiley & Sons" (molecular modeling from 1998?!) and computer software packages like GRID (which could be used as part of an antibiotic design process). There is no specific example in the patent for actually using their structure to produce a particular antibiotic or drug. The text makes it blatantly clear that the processes they describe are nothing BUT prior art, and are only useful with the real focal point of the patent, which is the structure.

It's all just part of the game we play. Raw information is patented as "inventions" because we can, and it looks good on a resume and it's legal ammunition to throw around in this horribly broken system.

Re:patents...

[Vesvvi]

It looks like this whole topic is littered with information, so here are some translations for you all.

We claim:
1. A method of growing a crystal of a 50S ribosomal subunit from Haloarcula marismortui comprising:
(a) isolating a 50S ribosomal subunit from Haloarcula marismortui;
(b) precipitating the 50S ribosomal subunit;
(c) back-extracting or resuspending the precipitated 50S ribosomal subunit to obtain a solution;
(d) seeding the back-extracted or resuspended solution of step (c);
(e) growing a crystal of the 50S ribosomal subunit from the seeded solution of step (d) by vapor diffusion at room temperature;
(f) harvesting the crystal from step (e);
(g) stabilizing the harvested crystal by gradual transfer of said crystal into a series of solution containing high salt concentration of from about 1.2 M to 1.7 M; and
(h) maintaining the crystal under high salt concentration, wherein the crystal (i) is untwinned, (ii) has an average thickness greater than about 15 .mu.m, and (iii) diffracts X-rays to a resolution of at least 2.7 .ANG..

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising: (i) flash freezing the crystal of step (h).

This is definitely a process patent, but not much of it is patentable.
Step (a) uses a centrifugation process that every biochemist knows, and they cite a 1985 paper.
Step (b) is another basic purification step based on selective precipitation, and again is a standard technique.
Step (c) means that they re-dissolved the protein, pretty special...
Steps (d,e) could be unique if they did anything really extraordinary. It's been too many years since I've been a practicing crystallographer, so I can't say if anything in those steps is very unusual. I doubt it: vapor diffusion etc is pretty typical as an overall technique.
Steps (f-h) and (2i) are also just basic crystallography procedures.

In this patent, there's just nothing but crystals and structures, period.

Re:patents...

[Vesvvi]

In practice, that rule has been bent to the point where it no longer has any meaning. You can't patent a DNA sequence, but you can patent the DNA sequence in purified form. Want to check to see if you're the carrier of a particular, naturally-occurring, patented DNA sequence? You had better not purify your own DNA, or you will be violating the patent.

Here's an analogy for you: honey is a naturally-occurring substance, which is usually found mixed in with undesirable materials like wax and live bees. If you applied the same criteria as biological patents, you could patent bottled honey since that's an artificial creation.
Technically you could patent the process of warming honeycomb and letting the honey drip out, just to prove that you invented honey, but it wouldn't be necessary. Just the honey in the bottle would be enough.

And that should be a sickening thought for anyone.

Re:patents...

[Hognoxious]

Take everyone's favorite example of an area where the research is said to be too costly to conduct without patents: drugs. I call major bullshit. We, consumers, end up compensating big pharma in full for all research, all marketing, and, if rumors are true, all the coke they blow with their monopoly money.

By that logic it doesn't cost any money to build a hotel, since all the money comes from the people who stay there.

You do understand what "up front" means?

Re:patents...

[Jedi Alec]

So when they have sex they have to pay you royalties?

In other news, Slashdot reports an unprecedented influx of new subscribers. When asked about this, CmdrTaco commented: "Apparently teenagers have decided that reading slashdot with all its side-effects is still preferable than being bled dry by their parents".

Re:patents...

[nahdude812]

"Yet" being the operative word =)

Re:patents...

[melikamp]

By that logic it doesn't cost any money to build a hotel

Where did I state that "it doesn't cost any money to" do anything? What are you talking about? I pointed out that rewarding research with cash is better for consumer than rewarding the same research with a global manufacturing monopoly.

Patent

[Anonymous Coward]

From reading the patent summary, it appears to claim some techniques related to x-ray crystallography. It's not a patent on ribosomes, which already existed in nature.

Re:Patent

[Mendokusei]

You must be new around here. /. commenters don't ever actually read the patent summary, spec, or claims.

Re:Patent

[mayko]

So it's like patenting the act of surgery, but not scalpels.

Either way it keeps other researchers, and companies from advancing or innovating where they left off. So for the duration of this patent they will have complete control over how we use this technology but more importantly how much we pay for it.

Going back to my first statement. Think of the negative impact on medical advances if someone, years ago, were able to patent "physical modification of human organs using a blade." Obviously it sounds absurd... and that is the point.

Re:Patent

[matt4077]

Think of the negative impact on medical advances if someone, years ago, were able to patent "physical modification of human organs using a blade."

No, it doesn't sound absurd. A patent expires after 20 years. Surgery was invented in the 18th century. Missing out on the first few years wouldn't matter anymore, since surgery is probably more limited by anatomy, biochemistry and pharmacological research than constantly inventing new techniques. Even better, a functioning patent system might have motivated someone to think of surgery earlier. Maybe more than 20 years earlier.

I'm not saying the system is perfect. I don't believe business patents or all the other seemingly obvious stuff are useful. But by misrepresenting the other side of the argument, you're not doing the cause a favor. People with too strong an opinion usually haven't thought the issue through.

Re:Patent

[Volante3192]

Except this is much more complex than just cut and paste. You can't patent, say, a person blowing air into glass for the purposes of shaping but you can patent a machine that performs the same operation.

The problem with this blog post is the author seems more bent on proclaiming "they patented this, patents are bad, therefore this is bad" rather than saying what parts of the patents are bad. There's obviously something novel in what was accomplished here. USPTO might be ignorant to prior art, but I doubt the Nobel committees are as lax.

Plus reading the patent abstracts don't do me much good either; I lack the necessary background to make any heads or tails of them. (Hell, I can't tell the diff between an -ane and an -ene without a cheat sheet.)

What I can tell is they're not patenting the ribosomes or any resulting compound created, but instead some method of isolating and analyzing them. This at least opens the door for a patent and is what the patent system was designed to protect. We have a methodology now that blue chip pharmecuticals are taking advantage of hand over fist but would never have gone through the risk of actually pioneering; it makes sense to have some of that trickle down to the people that actually created the process so they can continue research and make more breakthroughs (and allow the cycle to begin anew).

Re:Patent

[matt4077]

You can't patent, say, a person blowing air into glass for the purposes of shaping but you can patent a machine that performs the same operation.

I'm pretty sure if our patent system had been in place at the time glass was invented, it could have been patented. Many people make the mistake of thinking "oh it's so obvious. Just melt some silicon and form it into a bottle using air pressure". But it's not obvious. And in that case it was one of humanities most important inventions. Think how much work went into perfecting the process: the right tools, the perfect temperature etc. It took over 300 years until we had glass that was at least free of visible imperfections. And why would anybody ever spend years to do that kind of research? I'm sure at the time glass was invented, new traveled slowly and it was easy to keep the process somewhat secret for a few years. Today, we believe it's better to share all the details openly and then impose and artificial restriction to encourage invention.

A properly working patent system is about free, open disclosure and sharing of knowledge.

Re:Patent

[Volante3192]

A properly working patent system is about free, open disclosure and sharing of knowledge.

I would argue that's an idealistic patent system. (And probably not a patent system at all.)

People, however, are not ideal. There are idealists who want information to be free, and then there's robber barons who only want to make a buck off everyone's creativity. Without patent protection, a little guy could make a fantastic product and then have it stolen by big conglom-o and have zero recourse. (Yes, I know that technically even WITH patent protection, in today's courts that's a massive uphill climb, BUT it does at least allow for the climb.)

We can't let stupid decisions by the USPTO and SCOTUS blind us to the underlying need for a patent system: to protect research and development from the types of people that destroyed Wall Street.

Re:Patent

[Zordak]

Especially not the claims. Reading the claims is tantamount to reading the article. The proper ./ method for commenting on a patent is to read the title, pick a few words out of the abstract, cry about how it's obvious and how patents are killing innovation, and cite as prior art some software that was released three years after the filing date and is irrelevant.

Re:Patent

[ajs]

It's true. The only problems with the patent system right now are:

* Patents in fields that advance far more quickly than physical industries are protected for the same amount of time (e.g. software)

* Patents can be trivially modified and re-submitted in order to "renew" an existing patent (e.g. pharma industry)

* Prior art reviews and obviousness tests are poorly done, relying mostly on court challenges after the fact to resolve such issues

Resolve those three problems and you have a patent system that accomplishes the original goal: to foster the advancement of the sciences and useful arts.

I've proposed solutions here before, but to re-cap:

1) Establish a product lifecylce metric for each industry and tie patent duration to reasonable multiples of the lifecycle (e.g. 2-4 times the time it takes to design and release a new product in that industry)

2) Enhance the review process and reject far more patents on the basis of prior art.

3) Open the prior art review process up to the public after the first round approval.

4) Establish fines for those who repeatedly submit applications for patents that have prior art (not just a couple of times, but as an ongoing business practice; the goal is not to hurt individuals who make mistakes).

Re:Patent

[TheTurtlesMoves]

You can't patent, say,..

Hold that thought, and that just the short list, make sure you read the claims.... The patent office has permitted everything to be patented. The problem is that when it come to the courts, its assume that the patent is valid and a default injunction passed without even considering whats in the patent...

How long

[buchner.johannes]

Anyone know how many years the patents hold? TFA doesn't say.

Also, what are you prohibited to do in research? Is it a big problem? Why not move to Europe for researching?

Re:How long

[coolsnowmen]

I'm betting that the Article doesn't list a lot of googleable knowledge.

Are you looking for something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_of_patent_in_the_United_States

For applications filed on or after June 8, 1995,[1] the patent term is 20 years from the filing date of the earliest U.S. application to which priority is claimed (excluding provisional applications).[2]

Answers to the Article's conclussion:

[rwv]

But should research so fundamental to life, such as the ribosome structure, be locked up for commercial gainâ"like Dynamite? Should a private institution, such as Yale, have the only say over how ribosomes may be developed into new biomedical technologies?

No, research should never be locked up. The patent system should evolve to the point where laymen with appropriate field knowledge and the right tools can copy ANY patented technique.

Yes, Yale absolutely has a right to decide what they do with their patent. If they sit on it, that's fine. There are other methods of doing what they learned to do. If the license it, that's fine too. Giving businesses the ability to benefit from their basic research is a good thing.

If Yale accumulates a big enough patent portfolio and tampers with the free market, they should be subject to government investigations and penalties. But in the case of Yale... they'll license to patent to bring in money to fund more fundamental research to future Yale scientists can advance the state of the art even further.

If the author really wants to attack stupid biological patents, he should investigate (correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the biggest offender is) Monsanto.

Re:Answers to the Article's conclussion:

[Rakshasa Taisab]

And if someone does not license out a life-saving patent at reasonable prices, it should not just be government's prerogative, but also their duty to take control of the patent and license it out.

Re:Answers to the Article's conclussion:

[Hognoxious]

Define "reasonable price".

Re:Answers to the Article's conclussion:

[rwv]

I'm the GGP. I think the GP is completely wrong to suggest the possibility that an organization would fail to capitalize on their fruitful investments by high-balling downstream businesses.

The fact that we are talking about a research organization that makes it's money from technology patents puts this discussion into a sort of bizarro world because this is the sort of thing that major medical companies would pay big bucks to get (and pay top salaries to the team of Ph.D candidates who came up with it).

But... like I said originally... if Yale develops a pattern of patent abuse that spans years/decades then government investigation would be appropriate. Failing that, let them go about their business of producing more and more Ph.D's.

And give Yale a break... they had a major setback recently because of an unfortunate association with a Mr. George W. Bush. I bet, if they could, they'd renounce that connection.

Not as evil as author claims?

[Volante3192]

From the article, ...cover not only the process for determining the structure of the molecules, but also the computation used to design new antibiotics.

Now, this might not be saying the whole story, but it doesn't sound like the ribosomes are what's being patented (which would result in ire here). Instead, it's a technique of how to find what molecules and bindings are used by the ribosomes (or something along those lines.)

The second part, the computation, probably a little more evil, but again it's a little light on details.

I could probably do a patent search and see exactly what the abstracts are...but I doubt I could understand them without a tl;dr and a chemistry glossary.

Basically, there's undoubtedly something patentable within this process it's just a matter of making sure they've got the right thing patented. I don't see anyone patenting a gene or a molcule here so there's no "nature made this already" defense. Furthermore, I don't think anyone can exactly make an "obviousness" claim here; USPTO might be pretty lax about prior art, but I'd think the Nobel committee would be a bit more thorough about trying to locate prior research.

Re:Not as evil as author claims?

[TeethWhitener]

You're onto something. I'm a chemist, so I can understand the patents without a tl;dr. What they've patented is a method for making high-quality crystals of ribosomes for x-ray analysis and the crystals (and this is key) produced by that method. Here's an analogy. I invent a new type of generator and I patent it and its products (electricity from that generator). Nothing wrong with that. Two days later, /. runs a story with the headline 'Crazy man patents electricity.' Aaaaaand scene. But in all seriousness, I do have to take /. to task for only having this story up about the Nobel Chem prize. Kind of spoils the importance of the discovery, guys.

Re:Not as evil as author claims?

[Anonymous Coward]

The patents include the methodology of how to purify, crystallize, and solve the structures of ribosomes. This is non-trivial as ribosomes are roughly 100 times larger than the average protein subjected to this technique, contains many different parts, not all of which are protein. The problem gets much harder the larger and more parts their are and quite frankly if it hadn't been done already I'd say that anyone attempting the project was inviting failure (why yes! I am an x-ray crystallographer!). For this massive, non-trivial, non-obvious, original work they have every right to protect and license their intellectual property as they see fit. It even isn't as though the individual researchers are getting rich off of taxpayer funded research: they'll get very little. Yale (and the lab, but mostly Yale) will get some money to do research and other campus activities. The computation part we'll see if that holds up. I haven't read the whole patent, but if they're trying to say that nobody can use the publicly available structures to try and do drug design that portion will be struck down as soon as somebody wishes to challenge it.

Posting as AC due to modding the thread.

Re:Not as evil as author claims?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Kind of spoils the importance of the discovery, guys.

The importance of the discovery was spoiled when something that should never have been patentable was patented.

And yes, I understand the patents too.

Re:Not as evil as author claims?

[TeethWhitener]

...should never have been patentable was patented.

This makes me wonder what types of innovations you think should be patentable. If not methods of production and/or products of those methods, then what?

Re:Not as evil as author claims?

[Vesvvi]

I am truly sorry on several levels, but you are incorrect that the molecules themselves were not patented. They were, and that is the travesty.

Perhaps this is one of the few occasions when the righteous indignation is right on the money.

Re:Not as evil as author claims?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Actual, physical devices. And that's it.

Before you comment...

[H0p313ss]

... at least read the summary carefully. They didn't patent the natural structures.

Re:Before you comment...

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Try reading the patent. The structure is the only thing in the dam patent that is not prior art. This is patenting standard lab techniques that most lab folk know and do on a regular basis. Check out some of the comments further up.

They should strip the Nobels....

[Anonymous Coward]

... from anyone who patents what they won them for. The prizes should reward altruism, not greed.

Re:They should strip the Nobels....

[Volante3192]

Then strip the prize money from the award too.

Anyway, what would stop a pharmecutical from taking the method, getting their own patent for it and suing other people who use it into oblivion? In a utopia, you might have a point, but I'd rather Yale hold these patents than Merck, Pfizer or GlaxoSmithKline.

Re:They should strip the Nobels....

[GrumblyStuff]

Is there anyway to patent something then effectively void it as if the duration was up thus preventing anyone else from patenting and locking it up?

Re:They should strip the Nobels....

[Overzeetop]

Sure - just provide a fee-free, unrestricted license. Patenting something means you control it, including setting it free.

Re:They should strip the Nobels....

[Anonymous Coward]

... from anyone who patents what they won them for. The prizes should reward altruism, not greed.

It won't do much harm if you weren't anonymous.

Michael Crichton

[Chameleon Man]

Michael Crichton has warned about this before in his book Next and has apparently cause politics to take interest.

Michael Crichton novel Next... (spoiler)

[nebaz]

Michael Crichton wrote a novel in 2006 called "Next" which addresses this issue, the sloppiness of laws regarding genes, genetics and patents, it is kind of on the mark with this topic. In that novel, a man's genes are patented by a company who is conducting a trial, and the company steals his child, claiming "intellectual property". Kind of precient, and scary stuff.

Misleading Summary

[cabjf]

It's not the "fundamental components of biology" that are being patented. It's the new methods of manipulating and studying them. I don't really see the problem. Patents can be licensed and will eventually end. It costs a lot of money in R&D to do this research. Why should an organization bear this cost out of the kindness of their heart? Isn't this pretty much the point of the patent system? To promote the sharing of new and novel ideas while still protecting the inventor's/researcher's work?

Re:Misleading Summary

[JackL]

I'm with you that it is not the "fundamental components of biology" that are being patented. What I do not understand fully is what is being patented? The articles are rather vague when it says, "cover not only the process for determining the structure of the molecules, but also the computation used to design new antibiotics." It seems like Steitz et al are hardly the first to grow these crystals. See: co-winner Ada E. Yonath. Also, it seems like the computation is more of a software patent. Do we have those in the US?

As far as your question,"Why should an organization bear this cost out of the kindness of their heart?", I don't know for a fact, but I am guessing most of the work was paid for by NIH, NSF or some other granting agency.

Re:Misleading Summary

[Volante3192]

The article is very light on details, unfortunatly. I was personally hoping for a layman's description of what the patents constituted but instead it felt I was just reading an anti-patent tirade. But what was overlooked in the article is that they didn't patent ribosomes (which it sounded like what the author was trying to imply), but they patented a method for analyzing their structure.

The irony is this could be one of the best cases FOR having patents. Yale spends millions on research, makes a breakthrough, licences it out to Big Pharma and as a result Yale is able to get funding for more research.

I just wish there was more detail on the patents themselves rather than someone arguing against patents in general to make a better determination on how evil, to use the local patent buzzword, these patents actually are.

Re:Misleading Summary

[Daniel Dvorkin]

It's the new methods of manipulating and studying them. I don't really see the problem.

The problem is the word "methods." Methods, of any kind -- business methods, software methods, scientific methods, etc. -- should never be patentable. Ever.

They want to build a specific machine that implements these methods, and patent that? Fine. But here's what they're claiming:

1. A method of growing a crystal of a 50S ribosomal subunit from Haloarcula marismortui comprising: (a) isolating a 50S ribosomal subunit from Haloarcula marismortui; (b) precipitating the 50S ribosomal subunit; (c) back-extracting or resuspending the precipitated 50S ribosomal subunit to obtain a solution; (d) seeding the back-extracted or resuspended solution of step (c); (e) growing a crystal of the 50S ribosomal subunit from the seeded solution of step (d) by vapor diffusion at room temperature; (f) harvesting the crystal from step (e); (g) stabilizing the harvested crystal by gradual transfer of said crystal into a series of solution containing high salt concentration of from about 1.2 M to 1.7 M; and (h) maintaining the crystal under high salt concentration, wherein the crystal (i) is untwinned, (ii) has an average thickness greater than about 15 .mu.m, and (iii) diffracts X-rays to a resolution of at least 2.7 .ANG..

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising: (i) flash freezing the crystal of step (h).

In short, they're patenting experimental protocols. This kind of patent is a blow at the fundamental processes of science.

Re:Misleading Summary

[Vesvvi]

It did cost a lot of money to do this research, and the taxpayers of the US are likely the ones who funded most of it, a long time ago. The researchers in question here made their living by receiving governments grants.

You could say that since Bayh-Dole basically gives universities the rights to the discoveries, the universities just end up as caretakers of public-held intellectual knowledge, but I don't think they always act in the best interests of the public.

When considering things like biotech, the vast majority of funding is coming from the government, especially for the more pure research.

It depends entirely on investment capital ...

[Syncerus]

Remember: the primary valid purpose of patents is to allow the recapture of investment capital plus additional profits in proportion to the utility of the discovery.

If making these scientific discoveries is highly capital intensive, then patentablity is both useful and desirable because it encourages initial investment; eventually the patent will expire.

So, I would argue the key question isn't the nature of the discovery, but rather the necessary investment to make the discovery. A logical corollary is that most business process patents are a sham and are economically destructive ...

In all the patent hate, don't forget they have a valid use and purpose.

Re:It depends entirely on investment capital ...

[Fnord666]

Remember: the primary valid purpose of patents is to allow the recapture of investment capital plus additional profits in proportion to the utility of the discovery.

I disagree.

The purpose of the patent system
The historical purpose of the patent system was to encourage the development of new inventions, and in particular to encourage the disclosure of those new inventions. Inventors are often hesitant to reveal the details of their invention, for fear that someone else might copy it. This leads to keeping inventions secret, which impedes innovation.
- Ius mentis

On Thomas Jefferson
For Jefferson the purpose of the patent office was to promulgate invention, not protect them. These two reasons are why he formulated a policy for patents that encouraged invention but maintained restrictions on what could be patented. Thus he was able to be true to his beliefs and perform the duties foisted upon him by the Patent Act of 1790.
- www.earlyamerica.com

Re:It depends entirely on investment capital ...

[Syncerus]

By what means does the patent system "encourage the development of new inventions, and in particular to encourage the disclosure of those new inventions" ?

When you quote "Inventors are often hesitant to reveal the details of their invention, for fear that someone else might copy it", to what do you ascribe the fear?

My post described the lower level mechanism of the goals to which you refer.

Re:It depends entirely on investment capital ...

[alexo]

The historical purpose of the patent system was [...]

The current purpose of the patent system is to create artificial barriers to entry.

Summary is NOT misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if your goal is to generate page views on a hot-button issue.

NOOOOO!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Get your not-anti-intellectual-property blasphemy out of my /.

license fee?

[futurekill]

I'm not looking forward to the day when we have to pay a license fee for my children...

Re:license fee?

[schon]

On the plus side, it does give you some leverage with poorly-behaved children. :)

"Eat your vegetables, or I won't pay your license fee, and Monsanto will come to take you away!"

Re:license fee?

[futurekill]

Also lends more credence to the various forms of "...meet your maker..." phrases...

Re:license fee?

[cerberusss]

"Eat your vegetables, or I won't pay your license fee, and Monsanto will come to take you away!"

Imagine their horror when they grow up and find out that, indeed, the boogeyman from their youth does really exist :-)

Re:license fee?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are not supposed to pay the license for the end product, but for using the process to obtain the end product. So unless Monsanto asked you to pay them so that you could have sex with your wife, your children should misbehave as they please.

This glassblowing thingy...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't patent, say, a person blowing air into glass for the purposes of shaping but you can patent a machine that performs the same operation.

I'm pretty sure if our patent system had been in place at the time glass was invented, it could have been patented. Many people make the mistake of thinking "oh it's so obvious. Just melt some silicon and form it into a bottle using air pressure". But it's not obvious. And in that case it was one of humanities most important inventions. Think how much work went into perfecting the process: the right tools, the perfect temperature etc. It took over 300 years until we had glass that was at least free of visible imperfections. And why would anybody ever spend years to do that kind of research? I'm sure at the time glass was invented, new traveled slowly and it was easy to keep the process somewhat secret for a few years. Today, we believe it's better to share all the details openly and then impose and artificial restriction to encourage invention.

A properly working patent system is about free, open disclosure and sharing of knowledge.

You guys are being ironic, right? Or sarcastic? Or something?

Because it almost seems as if you really didn't know that glassblowing was the originating reason of a modern patent system. This should be common knowledge.

The thing was that a lot of glass was blown in Venice but every expert guarded his trade secrets very well and if he invented something new and then happened to die, the information died with him. The government thought it would be better if people would make the information public and then be given exclusive right to the methods for a while.

Re:This glassblowing thingy...

[Volante3192]

I didn't. I was trying for an analogy to say you can't patent the human part of a process and I'm not sure I even hit that right...and it just went on its own track afterwards.

Re:This glassblowing thingy...

[matt4077]

You guys are being ironic, right? Or sarcastic? Or something?

Actually, I didn't know. Thanks for letting us know. It is indeed quite funny. (and proves my point).

Hello.... My Name is.....

[jameskojiro]

Hello, My name is Bob (Patent Pending).

How long before we start patenting people....

To Summarize

[Fnord666]

USPTO might be ignorant...

You could have stopped right there.

Patented ribosomes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. I'll stop transcribing DNA into proteins until I arrange a proper license agreement. Also, I ... AACCCCCCK!!#%!T^ 1 ]dsalfjhsa; 24`; a,.m .sag/..................

Government funding

[Anonymous Coward]

Did the government fund this in any way, there could be some issues here.

We all know making money is immoral

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like it is immoral for software developers to be paid for any work they perform. OMGZ you want to be paid for your work?!? Evil corporate shill!!! You should live on the smell of mung beans and sing GNU/bayah to survive. Good to see the communist fly attracting unwashed hippie basement dwellers are still out in force here.

No angry emails from me!

[nycguy]

Prizes to those who...have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind.

If that's the case, I'll have to dig through all of the checks for my patented penis enlargement pills to find the check from the Nobel Foundation.

Oh wait, the invention has to actually work?!?

You don't understand.

[Anonymous Coward]

The patent system is simply an expression of an idea, and as such it is copyrighted. To reform the system requires the permission of the holder of the copyright (Disney).

Ok, actually, the patent system is a tool for concentrating wealth and delaying innovation indefinitely (17 years on the original patent, but wait, there's extension patents to push it out past 17 years). It's a tool made by our government. While we were asleep at the switch. To reform anything in government in more than name necessitates a pre-requisite reform of the campaign finance (read: politician bribery) system.

Until we buy back our legislators by completely eliminating non-governmental funding of political campaigns, we can't really expect our leaders to do anything except posture to put pressure on the lobbyists to feed them money and babes and other perks.

Re:You don't understand.

[TheTurtlesMoves]

It's a tool made by our government.

In fact its a tool America copied off the British Government.

Patenting what EVERY living being has ....

[unity100]

i cant even say 'prior art' .... unbelievable. in america, right ? every shit works there. every shit.

ribosome looks like...

[Onymous Coward]

David Goodsell does excellent illustrations and explanations of various biological molecules. Check out the molecule of the month at the RCSB. Among those is the ribosome

Missed the boat on this...

[Drakkenmensch]

I was going to make a snarky comment that pretty soon we'll all be paying royalties for having living bodies, but then I remembered that I'm already paying taxes.

Re:Missed the boat on this...

[RockDoctor]

pretty soon we'll all be paying royalties for having living bodies, but then I remembered that I'm already paying taxes.

Don't worry - you'll have to start paying for your oxygen before too much longer too. They're just trying to work out how to handle non-payers in a way that will encourage them to start paying again.

You can't patent nature...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but you can patent new methods for interacting with it. If you took the care to look at the actual patent you would notice what is actually going on.

The patent covers the methods used to view Ribosomes, if someone else came up with a new and different way to get the same results that would not covered by the scope of patents such as this.

They aren't claiming ownership of DNA, they are claiming ownership on a new and highly specialized process to understand it.

NIH Funding

[Joe Torres]

If this is the paper from the article, then "[The] work was supported in part by National Institutes of Health Grant GM-22778." Lu M, Steitz TA. Structure of Escherichia coli ribosomal protein L25 complexed with a 5S rRNA fragment at 1.8-A resolution. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA. 2000;97:2023–2028 (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=24423)