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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.'
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
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.
... at least read the summary carefully. They didn't patent the natural structures.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
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?
Fleur de Sel