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

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.

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: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: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.