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Stem Cell Patent Halts Hospital's Collection
eldavojohn writes "It's a classic case that comes up when dealing with patents. A hospital's research on the donated brains of deceased children has been in limbo for three years because of a challenge from a patent holder. The double-edged sword of patents that spurred investment into the field will also cause chilling effects on research like the case of the Children's Hospital of Orange County. They've now been forced to shift the money from the lab to lawyers in order to deal with this ongoing patent dispute over a technique that was developed to extract stem cells at the Salk Institute. Unfortunately the Salk Institute failed to patent the technology, so a company named StemCells happily had it approved. The real disheartening news is that CHOC's Dr. Philip H. Schwartz — the doctor collecting the cells — was one of the original researchers who helped developed this technique at the Salk Institute. Now he can't even use the technique he helped create. Schwartz has since been instructed not to publicly discuss the case further. Research interests are clashing with commercial interests in a classic case that causes one to wonder if patents surrounding medical techniques like this stretch too far. As for the people that donated their dead child's brain to research, those valuable stem cell cultures have been kept in storage instead of being disseminated to research labs (which desperately need them) across the country."
A group that didn't invent it shouldn't even be able to patent it. Fuck you, "StemCells", fuck you to the grave.
hello? shouldn't prior art quickly dissolve this patent?
So you could say that the company StemCells
::puts on sunglasses::
is causing division in this new industry?
::yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh::
Dead child brains?
Advanced medical research?
Idea-stealing profiteers and soulless lawyers, deserving of comeuppance?
I smell zombies!
-kgj
I know this is a serious topic, but... I... can't resist....
BRAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIINNNNSSSS!!!
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
How can StemCells be granted a patent for this technique? It would seem that Salk Institute can prove that it is prior art (i.e. that they utilized this technique prior to any patent claims by StemCells), invalidating the patent claim by StemCells.
This could probably be resolved by publishing the names of those responsible for StemCells far and wide.
This is a great example of why defensive patents are necessary. The inventor can obtain the patents, then grant anyone a free, perpetual license to use the technology. Hopefully, the doctor will win the lawsuit based on his work in creating the process but it's pretty crazy that it's not certain that he can win unless his creative process was public enough to constitute prior art.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Research is a noncommercial endeavour, and as such patent infringement cannot occur. What these "researchers" were trying to do with these brains was something akin to a commercial endeavour, whereby the can extract the stem cells within the dead children's brains, grow them as eternal cell culture and cell these renewing stem cell cultures to real researchers. If they were performing non-profit research, they could use whatever technique the wanted to ... it's like a hobby.
You can go tinker with your car and fabricate a new intake manifold on your own to make it go faster, and not be afraid of being sued for patent infringement because you used some company's design for an intake manifold. When you start racing professionally with that car seeking sponsorships and purses, then you've committed patent infringement.
Life, and the building blocks of life should never be considered for a patent. Genes are one more item that I would say should never have a patent too. It's a very sad day when the very thing you help create you no longer can use because some Company now own the patent. This is closing out other innovations that could come from open research. It all breaks down to this, Every one wants to make a buck, and they don't care what they have to do to make that happen.
So to date this life-giving science has been encumbered by christian fundamentalists and unsavory patent trolls. If my america pedals itself any faster into the dark ages, ill have to resort to public flagellation as a response to the upcoming hurricane season.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Google Finance knows all:
http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ASTEM
Scroll to the bottom and there is a list of Execs.
Martin McGlynn is CEO:
http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/officerProfile?symbol=STEM.O&officerId=169142
"Mr. Martin M. McGlynn serves as President, Chief Executive Officer, Director of StemCells Inc. Mr. Martin McGlynn joined the company in January 2001, when he was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the company and of its wholly-owned subsidiaries. Mr. McGlynn was elected to the Board of Directors in February 2001."
$1,324,380 per year is a pretty decent salary.
Move to China, Russia, or Canada. After reading today's Slashdot news I don't know why anyone would want to live in the Western World.
You can't buy lab equipment since in the West that would make you a drug maker or a terrorist.
You can't create innovative software that does something better than an established market, because you're infringing on a patent. (The whole MPEG-LA thing...)
You can't grow one of the most useful plants known to man, because someone might ingest its bud and receive pleasure from it.
Honestly, Just move to another country that doesn't respect the US patents and start saving lives. I'm sure India would love to have your expertise. There is also the United Arab Emirates, and the other Oil producing nations that are actively building research facilities to help them compete when the oil runs out.
not synonym
Not that this helps the root problem, which is that a research lab has to blow its budget on lawyers to defend their work, but I have to imagine that the original research group published a paper either about the method, or using the method, since that's the primary deliverable for most research. If that's the case, they've almost certainly got a strong prior art case.
No one should have the right to patent anything used in the medical field. You create a wonder drug that can cure cancer or something, you have a responsibility as a human being to allow the world to use it.
Besides, if you didn't invent it, screw off.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
"After reading today's Slashdot news I don't know why anyone would want to live in the Western World."
Only if you are a PALIN-drone.
Yours In Akademgorodok,
Kilgore Trout, C.E.O.
Presumably the Salk Institute owns the prior art and possesses contemporary documentation of it. Schwartz could conceivably return to the Salk and continue his work there, unimpeded by the patent holder. The same goes for anyone working at the Salk.
Too bad Schwartz didn't publish before StemCells filed for a patent. Then everyone (not just those working at the Salk Institute) could have benefited immediately from his work.
On a related topic:
Why shouldn't academic/research centers have to pay to license fees? Of course these are mostly non-profit institutions, but none of them are no-profit.
Why not take your processes and ideas overseas and do your treatments elsewhere? It sucks that this guy got done by a patent troll but as others have pointed out you have to be prepared, especially in the US where greedy companies are on the prowl for other peoples ideas. This shouldnt stop this group from moving to another country and continuing their good work. If people want these kinds of treatments, they will travel. And if a patent troll is going to try and milk the whole thing for all its worth its probably cheaper in the long run to go overseas anyway. I'd be very public about it all. So what happend to the prior art? Doesnt documented prior research and proven results trump a patent?
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
Before we recognize that the patent system harms innovation and society as a whole?
It encourages making money via artificial monopolies instead of what honest participants in a real free market need to do: competitively provide products and services that consumers want.
"When in doubt, use brute force." Ken Thompson
http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/stemcell/researcher/Irving_Weissman/
irv@stanford.edu
Admin. aide: ljquinn@stanford.edu, 650-723-6520
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
When someone develops a technology, their choices are generally to patent it themselves, publish it to give it to the public, or keep the development a secret. If a company indeed developed the technology independently, and there was no making the knowledge public, then the secret-keeper can have a problem. The patent system encourages developments to be made public, but with benefits for doing so. One of the detriments is that if you keep a secret, you may find someone else decides to patent it. Then you are can be an infringer. This is a rarer instance. Most often in the not-for-profit world, people choose to publish. In fact, early publication is the biggest threat to universities getting patents on professors' developments.
He didn't assume it, he asked about it.
And may have been thinking about the 271(e)(1) exemption or "Hatch-Waxman exemption".
The tech community sure seems ignorant of intellectual property law. It doesn't help to bury your head in the sand like Schwartz and the Salk Institute seem to have done.
How many thousands of dollars per patent, do you expect patent examiners to spend in their search for prior art?
If you read the summary it is the method of extracting cells that is at issue, not the cells themselves. This seems well within the realm of patentable things. If they can find a new way to extract the cells, that is fine, but this way is patented.
Admittedly, it is patented by people that didn't actually invent the method, and thus the lawsuit, but the patent should only be invalidated on those grounds, not because of the contents of the patent.
Disclaimer: I am one of those firmly against software/business method patents (or look/feel patents, at best those should be trademarked), and I am all for shorter copyright terms (I think 20 years across both patents and copyrights).
As for the people that donated their dead child's brain to research, those valuable stem cell cultures have been kept in storage instead of being disseminated to research labs (who desperately need them) across the country.
Gotta love some good hyperbole. Not only are they evil corporations, but they are after the brains of dead children!
Won't they think of the poor dead children that donated their brains for this research?
Executive summery, fourth paragraph:
"We have over forty issued U.S. patents, plus foreign equivalents to some fourteen of our U.S. patents and applications, for a total of over one hundred and seventy individual patents worldwide."
This company is clearly a patent troll, NOT a technology company. Shame shame shame.
why can't people use this amazing mental ability called compare and contrast when deriving their various lofty opinions?
the usa has plenty of problems. obviously. and don't you think any of the places you list don't have problems of their own, some of them obviously quite worse? some of them quite different? some of them leaving you just as angry and baffled as the problems in the usa? some of them just as complicated and difficult to solve as those in the usa?
furthermore, if you have a problem with a policy in your home country, instead of fleeing somewhere else, you should stay and fight for what you believe in. you're a sort of ideological parasite if you desire a certain social or legal standard, but instead of actually putting in the hard work to achieve it, you run away and instead depend upon people you don't even know in a foreign country to work hard to give you the rights and freedoms you desire
if you run off to canada and spout off to a canadian about supposed canadian superiority about this or that issue, the canadian isn't going to look at you admiringly and embrace and welcome you as some sort of secret brother in arms. no, they're going to go "well that's great that you say that. so why don't you not freeload off me here, and go back home and fight for that superior understanding you share with me, so we have a nicer neighbor to our south, okay?"
it says a lot about your supposed lofty standards that you won't even fight for them. you just run away when challenged. this is not ideological superiority, this is character weakness
imagine hypothetical ideology X. guess what: nowhere, ever, on any place in the world, will ideology X exist, unless someone actually stands their ground and fights for ideology X. if instead, the mass of believers in ideology X are only about running away and fleeing at the slightest menace to their much vaunted (and empty) beliefs, then ideology X isn't a real ideology at all, just some daydream of a philosophy student with little real world experience with actual human beings
expats, whether to the usa, or from the usa, or from any country {X} to any country {Y}, to me, you're just a coward. fight for what you believe in, and fight it where you are from. the world is never going to improve if the best keep leaving their home countries
and yes, in some places, like iran, that means you are facing certain death. if you are fleeing a truly horrible regime like in iran, that will torture and kill you for defying them, then you get a pass according to me, i don't criticize you. because i know you will continue to fight: the iranian expat community continues the struggle as best they can for their home country, because fighting from afar is weak, but its better than being dead
but, the wanker in the comment above, this is the kind of person who would never stand his ground and fight against a regime like in iran. he'll shit all over the horrid west, but if he were iranian, with his character, he would flee and cower somewhere else, never fight for the rights he says are so dear to him... in word only. or he would stay in tehran and dutifully obey every edict of the theocracy in iran, because the wanker i am responding to is obviously a spineless coward with no real allegiance to any true ideology
and right now, we must contrast such a flighty wanker with real freedom fighters, dying in iranian prisons right now, because they dare defy the regime and try to express freedoms we take for granted in the west every day
such true freedom fighters, young people with real ideals and real ideology, paying for those beliefs in their own blood and death: those dying in iranian prisons right now, in prison simply for saying what they believe, these iranians understand exactly what my comment here is all about
and would have nothing but disgust for the spineless wanker i am responding to
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is utter bs. Patents should not be allowed on processes, ONLY physical items/tools. The person should also be required to submit documentaiton that proves they put forth the capitol or inventive means to create the tool uncontested.
I am going to patent the placing your hand over your mouth when you cough so that everyone that does it infringes in my patent and either has to pay me or change.
I will then patent the arm, leg, and the whole coughing process in general. Hopefully as a result all these moroms can get sick and die.
Come on Human Race get your heads out of the sand, get rid of lawyers, patents, and copy rights and start from scratch. Society first, should patents exist, yes, they give insentive to the people that spend the money.
Simple law, if you even hold a patent it does not stop others from producing it, but others have to pay a set (say 10%) price to the patent holder for research expenses. This will allow competativeness and still give the develop something to fund their next research, by not barring anyone from developing what they create. It would also spur pure research companies.
Additionally the government could hold patents for things they invent, NASA budget problems, what budget problems, 100% funding by the millions of patents they should have owned.
It would dramatically reduce the need for lawyers (A waste of space profession to begin with), as most the time they spend tons of money to lawyers just to be able to build something, this would give them a set price if they didn't want to spend the millions to fight the patent. Secondly they could be producing it while the lawsuit is going on, and if they win the patent holder would have to hand over the money they earned from the patent, including what the company paid to them that was contesting it. So no brains in storage required, move forward let the money fall in place after the smoke settles.
Small companies no longer have to sell their patents. So Mac and Microsoft want to use a nifty invention, they both can without and chance of being sued, this little guy that can't hope to compete right away gets a butt load of cash from them. A few years we have a new competitor, or someone that was creative and made it rich. This would also reduce lags in technology caused by researching if they can use a technology. They can, now they just start development and let the money people worry about patents. Accelerated technology is a big plus.
A way to get non-open source thinkers into sharing and hopefully playing nice for a bigger brighter future.
Whatever happened to that really old legal requirement for patents? You know the one where you actually have to be the inventor to patent it...
... and in the DRM, bind them.
This patent troll has over-extended itself: the researchers will be able to prove their prior-art research and at the end of the day, the StemCells inc. patent will be invalidated - and they have nobody else but themselves to blame.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I used to think statements like this were hyperbole but now it seems an unavoidable conclusion. There was a time when America, and "the West" in general, were animated by a respect for science in and of itself.
Now there is something deeply broken in our country, it's as if there has been a kind of fundamental rejection of the concept of progress as one of the central aspects of our national identity. The idea that together we can make the future better than the present has seemingly been supplanted by authoritarian greediness. Americans don't generally believe in improving the world, we have rejected the idea of the "common good".
The American project was founded on Enlightenment values, somewhere along the way we lost sight of those values and have drifted from their moral trajectory into a dystopia.
How can StemCells be granted a patent for this technique? It would seem that Salk Institute can prove that it is prior art (i.e. that they utilized this technique prior to any patent claims by StemCells), invalidating the patent claim by StemCells.
They got it because our patent system is horribly broken. It seems the USPTO can't be bothered to validate patents anymore, just look them over for the occasional amazingly obvious blunder then stamp them approved. Even worse, the actual inventor may not have the funds to go through the litigation needed to get the patent overturned or transferred to them leaving them with few options.
The original intent of patents was to encourage innovation by giving the inventor a few years to make some money off their invention before anyone else could copy it. The idea being that the public benefit from more innovation would offset the short term monopoly on the new invention. In the modern day patents seem to be more useful as weapons for companies to bludgeon each other over the head with than anything beneficial.
Patent law only lasts 20 years. Copyrights last 70 years past the death of the owner. Copyrights should last 20 years the same way patents do. A case can be made that research is exempt from patent royalties, however, use for profit is not.
Stem Cell Patent Stems Hospital's Collection
[giggle]
--- I was far from home, and the spell of the Eastern sea was upon me. -Lovecraft-
Your argument presupposes nationalism as an element of ideology.
Also, I believe the OP was suggesting that scientists who desire to engage in research unencumbered by the American insanity should work in those countries. It's not about ideology to them, it's about doing science. You seem to be suggesting that before these scientists can be scientists they must first become political revolutionaries. That sounds very nice and all, but it is a bit of an absurd proposition. Not to mention a tremendous misallocation of scientists. I say, if America and the West now value power, greed, and irrationalism more than progress then we should cheer the scientists on for their courage in advancing the cause of science by escaping their oppression.
and we are very much part of 'the western world'. Right there next to you. A little to the north. There you go.
Karma fed to this user will be promptly burnt. Be warned; be wary.
I have been told to document all inventions we come up with at work, even if they are something we would prefer one of our vendors to implement, because if we don't, another vendor could claim it is their IP and keep our vendor from using it.
How patently fair. The intellectual property laws are out there for everyone to see and play by, and the public has benefited from this.
The process was apparently invented independently and simultaneously by two groups, only one of which (StemCells) filed a patent for it. If Schwartz had merely published his work first (or filed a patent for it first, which is tantamount to publishing), he could have blocked StemCell from obtaining a patent.
Schwartz chose instead to keep his technology secret. He lost his bet that no one else would discover the same thing any time soon. Thanks to StemCell's patent application, everyone now knows about the technology, rather than just Schwartz. People worldwide can now build on that technology, either through licensing of it or by trying to find work-arounds.
If I had mod points, this should really be bumped up. He could have shown prior art if he published, but he did not. I disagree that the results were fair (I never liked the 'first to the patent office' rule), but there was something the guy could have done.
If Schwartz still worked at the Salk, he (or anyone else there) could be freely using the process he invented, in spite of any third-party patent. Of course this assumes the Institute has documentation Schwartz invented the technology prior to StemCells having applied for their patent.
Technology moves on and off-shore.
We are in the process of wealth redistribution right now.
The country with the most liberal patent and copyright laws; with restrictive tort and a half-assed gov't will get all the new technology money.
Wait for it, this country will quickly eclipse the remainder of the world as technology moves to a more rigid exponential curve over the next few years/decades
Remember, this is Slashdot where, despite the election of Darling Obama, the USA is the inner circle of Hell and everywhere else is a Utopic vision of perfection beyond the pale of mortal man where the beer makes you live forever, the kids are doing tensor analysis by age 2, and peoples of all colors, creeds and beliefs dance about arm in arm loving one another.
Unfortunately the Salk Institute failed to patent the technology, so a company named StemCells happily had it approved.
It’s not a valid patent! Since there is prior art!
Man... it always takes two idiots to fuck things up. One to do it, and one to accept it.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
This is a case where the lab notes and emails written during the development of this technology become incredibly useful. Little things can become quite important in invalidating patents: a single date written on some reagents that weren't chucked out, a record of a person coming in to count cells in the lab, an email sent to discuss "something odd" that was observed.
On a side note, keeping [biotechnology] patents is an expensive process, and it's difficult to justify holding back research because of patent litigation. It is somewhat common for scientists to ignore patents and plough ahead in the name of research for the greater good ("the greater good").
Ask me about repetitive DNA
Patents are creating more problems than they're solving, lately. They were supposed to be a way to ensure that someone was able to make a living through creating innovations, now they're a way to stifle innovation and drive up a company's share value.
I think the system can be fixed, but I'm no genius, so I've only got a vague, probably loop-hole-ridden idea on how that could be done.
1. Patents apply to specific implementations of physical products. No processes, nothing naturally occurring (genes, etc).
2. If you're a non-profit entity engaging in research, you are exempt from patents. The patent-holder is under no obligation to help you, but you can't be sued for using something patented in your research (well, since you can't patent processes any more, it's not as big a thing, but still). Under that, it also means you wouldn't be able to charge for the results if they were dependent on patented technology unless you came to some form of agreement with the patent holder.
This should make it possible for a profit to be made on actual patent-worthy items, while not hindering important research. And yeah, if you're a for-profit research entity, just pony up for a licence to use the patented tech.
Though it might be easiest just to ditch the whole system and let people make their money off it by selling it to the highest bidder, and the second-highest bidder, etc.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
I'm hoping that's a joke I'm not getting. No evil corporation is after brains. The brains aren't going anywhere, that's the problem. The evil corp wants the brains to go to waste.
Admittedly though, that's a really poorly constructed sentence. It's equating people donating brains to being stem cell cultures.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
You should all learn from us!
But it seems to me that if a technique was already in use before another party patented it then their patent is no good and restricting other parties from using the technique might be grounds for a whopper of a law suit.
"The landscape is messy,'' said Gregory D. Graff, a patent expert at Colorado State University. "It is a complex situation where you have research interests intermingling with commercial interests. They are both legitimate purposes, but can be in conflict with each other.''
A hospital wants to use the cells to look into why certain brain diseases kill people (a social good) versus a company that just wants to sit on their stack o' patents and cash some royalty/licensing checks. I fail to see how both are legit purposes here.
There is no excuse for patents, it is like feodalism, it had it's time and represented progress under some specific constraints.
Now it is just bad in all situations.
Actually in retrospect fighting against software patents was an error, we tried to demonstrate how software was different, well it does not matter, the issue is not software it is all complex systems
that is anything worthwhile doing today.
So patents are bad in healthcase, agriculture, software, ... well everyware....
we need a revolution/boston tea party/magna charta/you name it against patents....
You know, I'm simply getting beyond TIRED about this patents problem, It already has surpassed the point of absurdity and now it is DIRECTLY affecting YOU, the citizen. Forget about not being able to code your own software, think about watching your kids DIE IN YOUR HELPLESS HANDS for not having enough strength to stand against this crap, come on guys, this is people's life we are talking here, medical research SHOULD NEVER BE PATENTED, **NEVER** no matter what, specially when it is directly interfering with peoples life and only hope.
Companies must profit, yes, I know that, but hell they are surpassing their limits, I tell you guys, it will reach critical mass sooner than you think, you'll have to take tremendously complex paths and then patent your stupid complex procedure to do things that should be done openly and easily in the first place, I don't know about you but I'm done.
You should reclaim your pride and fight against this.
Prior Art doesn't apply thus invalidating the patent-troll's patent?
What about eminent domain?
It is for the public good so can't a court rule that the patent holder is trollin' and to STFU?
yet, no one is thinking of the children.
irpr@stemcellsinc.com
Phone
650-475-3100
FAX
650-475-3101
If you want everyone to be able to freely use your technology, then just publish it (and don't bother to apply for a patent within the one-year grace period that exists in the U.S.A. after publishing.) You don't need to go to all the effort and expense of applying for a patent.
What good are people like you if all you ever do is support the law?
"Well, I never liked that, but the law says..."
We've heard your one note.
and the public has benefited from this.
Bullshit. The method was easy enough that multiple people have independently discovered it and it is now locked down so that nobody else can use it, at least without paying a worthless person who didn't even invent anything.
A simple, usable method for something was easily available and in use, now it is not. The public lost, and big.
People worldwide can now build on that technology, either through licensing of it or by trying to find work-arounds.
What kind of retard are you that you think it's going to be easier? The easy method is now taken, to work-around it they're going to have to needlessly complicate what should be a simple task. Pre-patent they'd have just looked in the lit, found who was doing it and asked him to explain his technique.
Patents should automatically be voided if anyone ever (before or after) independently invents the same thing.
Executive summery, fourth paragraph: "We have over forty issued U.S. patents, plus foreign equivalents to some fourteen of our U.S. patents and applications, for a total of over one hundred and seventy individual patents worldwide." This company is clearly a patent troll, NOT a technology company. Shame shame shame.
Microsoft has thousands of issued U.S. Patents. Clearly they must not create any technology, right?
No... That reasoning is flawed.
> "Unfortunately the Salk Institute failed to patent the technology,
> so a company named StemCells happily had it approved."
I know some years back the government shifted to "whoever patents it first gets it" even if they weren't the first inventor, but isn't there something about prior art?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
... if they have gone too far? I don't wonder at all!
da da da da - you say you want a revoooolushuuun, welllll you know, we'd all love to stop the trollss
It would be nice if the patent reform bills currently before Congress would address critical public interest issues such as this one. However, it looks like it will be up to the courts to decide where and when to place the public interest above the profit motive. Once the Myriad case is decided, perhaps fewer unfortunate situations like this one will occur.