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."

Comments

The value of defensive patents.

[darkmeridian]

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.

Re:The value of defensive patents.

[Anonymous Coward]

Coincidentally, the Salk Institute was founded by Jonas Salk, the saint-like figure who developed the polio vaccine in the 1950s and then intentionally did not patent it.

When news of the vaccine's success was made public on April 12, 1955, Salk was hailed as a "miracle worker", and the day "almost became a national holiday." His sole focus had been to develop a safe and effective vaccine as rapidly as possible, with no interest in personal profit. When he was asked in a televised interview who owned the patent to the vaccine, Salk replied: "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"

Defensive patents cost money, which requires investors and therefore profits. By allowing a system that requires inventors to file defensive patents, we are eliminating any future Salks.

Research = Noncommercial

[sonnejw0]

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.

Become part of the brain drain.

[2obvious4u]

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.

Patent troll? I think so.

[yossie]

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.

Re:How patently stupid.

[Kpau]

It would be a real shame if StemCells mysteriously burned to the ground and all the executives, investors, and such were found to have had their brains extracted. Not that I'm suggesting anything....