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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.
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.
dissolve as in eventually have a judge rule that the patent isn't valid? As the article points out, CHOC now has to go to court to get that handled. While the patent may
be invalid because of prior art it still takes courts and lawyers and dockets and paper to make this situation "right." What I don't understand is that if there's no
profit motive on the part of CHOC, they're doing research, why they're being prohibited from using the technique anyway? I guess it's like patenting a shovel, if anybody digs
a hole can the patent holder prohibit you from having a swimming pool?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
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.
Why do you assume there has to be a profit motive in order to run amok of patents?
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.
They still have to go to court to get it invalidated, though.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
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 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.
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.
Write your congress creature to push on patent reform, or more funding for the patent office to check for prior art.
Think Deeply.
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
The article doesn't say whether the original inventors published. If a technique can't be found in a literature search, I'd be surprised if it's considered prior art.
If the original inventors try to win on the grounds of priority, didn't it change a while ago from first-to-invent to first-to-file?
RTFA
StemCells is part of Stanford and were the first to create this technique
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.
Adding injury to insult, I believe that patent litigation is even more expensive than most court proceedings.
He didn't assume it, he asked about it.
And may have been thinking about the 271(e)(1) exemption or "Hatch-Waxman exemption".
Two small changes from what you wrote, but critical. Prior art must be public and predate patent filings (not necessarily predate claims).
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
I don't see any proof of that in the article. The article implies that it was lack of initiative by Salk Institute that allowed StemCells to secure a patent on the technique: "The dispute comes down to access to a technique that Schwartz helped develop at the Salk Institute but the institute failed to patent. StemCells did." Can you provide a citation that gives a detailed chronology? In any case, Weissman comes off as a huge hypocrite by freezing out a research group with no commercial interests --- i.e., on the one hand he'll advocate for freedom to carry out this research, while simultaneously stymieing basic, non-commercial research with the other. This is what really bothers me about patents: They can enable commercial interests to erect a fence and keep out any public research in a potentially large area of science. Commercial interests can often secure funds to pay for licensing the patents. This usually is not in the budget for publicly funded research groups. (My preview shows this appearing as a wall of text, even though I have included white space.)
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.
The word you're looking for is "afoul". Though you did conjure up an interesting image.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Where in the article does it say that?
Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine Institute at Stanford != Palo Alto biotech company StemCells
Sure, Dr Weissman is a member of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Boards of StemCells.
Sure, Dr Weissman is the Director of the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine.
But, they aren't mutually inclusive.
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.
This happens a lot. The sticking point is often that the patent owner offers the research lab a license to use their technology, but the lab has to sign an agreement to turn over the rights to all the commercially useful results of the lab's research to the patent holder. Often the agreement is so onerous, the researchers refuse to sign.
With the BRCA gene patent that was recently overturned, the lab could do research with the BRCA test for free, but if they found out one of their subjects was positive for the BRCA gene, they weren't allowed to tell the subject, because Myriad Genetics was charging $3,000 per test.
As to the prior art -- I thought the same thing. Academic scientists always publish anything useful, and if it was published, it would be prior art.
You can find the actual patent numbers in their 10-K form if anybody wants to look it up. http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9Mzc2ODQxfENoaWxkSUQ9Mzc1NTU2fFR5cGU9MQ==&t=1
I wonder how much of this research was done with U.S. government funding, which would have made it unpatentable until the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980.
Actually when filing for the patent StemCells should have had to prove originality of their idea. If their patent is found invalidated hopefully they will be forced to compensate for legal fees, but since many of these companies are small shell companies made to collect profit and compartmentalize risk they will have just enough assets for whatever their purpose is and no more so wont be able to pay any thing to the courts if they loose the case.
every anarchist is a baffled dictator. Benito_Mussolini
The article implies that it was lack of initiative by Salk Institute that allowed StemCells to secure a patent on the technique
You have to know that patenting a process internationaly costs around $100K
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
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.
As many as it takes to find it if it exists. But the bill should be footed by the person applying for the patent, not by the taxpayer.
As a side benefit, forcing the person to apply to foot the bill might just slow this "Try for a patent on EVERYTHING!!!!" mania way down. You'd see people thinking very hard about whether it's worthwhile to apply for a patent, with the possible risk of spending tens of thousands only to have the patent office say "Sorry, someone already did this a couple years ago."
Of course, the person/entity paying for the search would be free to call it off at any time, preventing further costs to them above what's already been spent. Of course, in this case, they don't get a patent.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Forced to compensate? These companies are puppets of bigger groups of people with money,and usually lawyers working purely on percentage of winnings only. These businesses have by nature NO money. They are just a shell game so when things go badly for them the owners just setup another company, transfer a few patents into it, and begin the process again. Hell, I can't understand for the life of me, but .\ won't even post anything up about my submission about a troll pulling the same thing against almost every GOOD CPU cooler on the market atm when they didn't develop a damn thing. This kind of BS has got to stop.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/04/09/us_based_companies_sued_for_heat_pipe_cpu_coolers/
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.
This may seem obvioud to you and me, but many people don't get it. Stem cell research has the potential to CURE many medical problems. That's CURE, as in permanently fix them. Most of "Big Pharma" makes most of their revenue from the boat load of maintenance medications that they ship out every day to TREAT THE SYMPTOMS of the many "chronic" and "incurable" diseases that are out there. My dad has taken a handful of pills every day of his life for the last 20 years to keep the prostate cancer that he got those two decades ago from coming back. Would have been a lot cheaper for him to have taken just a few magic blue pills to cure it once by straightening out the genes that make him have it in the first place. Same goes for AIDS / HIV patients. I've seen the cup fulls of pills they go through on a day to day basis to stay "healthy" or at least postpone the inevitable. If they found a way to kill or render ineffective HIV, then how much revenue would drug makers loose practically overnight?
There is NO LONG TERM MONEY to be made for drug companies in curing diseases. There IS a public health benifit to it though. Once governments see past their own politician's greed for being lobbied by these companies and start to promote university research at curing these diseases while being free of BS lawsuits like this impacting their work, medicine will stay where it has been for the last two decades, stagnated.
I guess it's like patenting a shovel, if anybody digs
a hole can the patent holder prohibit you from having a swimming pool?
Only if the swimming pool requires a shovel to build. You'll still be allowed to have a plastic kiddy pool, or you can dig the hole for the swimming pool with a stick. If you use a shovel, though, you have to pay the shovel man.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Look, I'm more spineless than that. I don't even have the ability to leave. I'm just very passive aggressive.
The law that bothers me that I have the best chance of changing is the blue law in my county. I would love to go to the Cantina on Sunday after mowing the lawn and enjoying a Dos Equis or Corona; but I can't buy alcohol in my county on Sunday. That would be the first law I wish was changed and I could actively do something about getting it changed. In the mean time I can just drive 20 min north or south of me to a county that doesn't have the stupid law.
The next law that has no chance of ever changing is the speed limit on I-75. There are stretches of miles of road with no exits or anything where the speed limit could be 80 or 90 MPH and it would be fine and there are other areas where 55 is to fast; but the idea that federal highway dollars won't be allocated to the state unless they conform to national speed guide lines is annoying. In this case I educate people on the real causes of highway fatalities and accidents (i.e. tail gating and changing lanes). But speeding is such an easy target for people wanting to save lives and its politically easy to be against speeding; not differentiating between highways and surface streets and ignoring other factors. In this case I actively drive 84 MPH and take every ticket to court. In every case I've gone to court I've had my case thrown out. The only time I pay the fine is when I get a ticket out of state and can't drive to the courthouse. I'd go faster than 84, but +15 MPH changes it from a fine to jail time and increased fines.
The third law which is having some traction in other states is re-legalizing marijuana. With the larger goal of ending the entire war on drugs; which would alleviate my complaints about owning lab equipment. In my state I've talked to some of the generation above mine and there is no chance this will ever change in my State. Would I still be a coward to move to a different State?
Then there is patents and copyrights. Trying to convert my DVD collection has been a chore. This is another passive aggressive area. I don't do the torrent thing, but I sneakernet. I buy games from Stargate even though I'm not going to play them, just to support the DRM free movement. I'd like to be able to buy a game or movie and be able to use it on any device I own. I have two x-box's and I'd like them to be able to talk to each other and use my gamer profile on both, but for pirating reasons they don't allow that feature. I also have 4 kids, I shouldn't have to buy a game 5 times to play it with my kids.
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.
That is meaningless rethoric. No matter how carefully you've searched through all existing publications from the entire recorded human history, it's always possible that you'd find something if you simply searched again. Since there's no upper bound to how many times you should check, there's no upper bound to how much money you can spend searching.
So only the richest corporations can afford patents, giving them yet another way to lord over everyone else.
Hey, I'm all for removing patent laws entirely. But if we do, let's do so openly; let us not pervert law so that they still exist but are too expensive to use.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
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.
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?"
Speaking as a Canadian, I feel fairly well equipped to speak to this scenario. The response, would in fact go as follows:
"You're an American, eh? Living here now? Immigrating and everything? Welcome to Canada. If I were you, I'd busy myself learning the differences. Fewer guns, trust the government, hate Ontario. Unless you're in Ontario. Then hate Toronto. Unless you're in Toronto, then pretend you're all of Canada. Also, make sure you get excited any time something Canadian is mentioned in some foreign piece of media. Thus concludes your orientation course, enjoy living here."
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
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....
<p>You have to put paragraph tags in. If you just add line breaks, slashdot removes them. For example, this sentence starts two lines below the previous sentence.</p>
<p>But this sentence is in a separate set of paragraph tags from all of the previous text. Note that I added fake paragraph tags where I put the real ones in this text.</p>
Or just post plain old text.
Like me.
Fair point. I suppose you can't add links though... but how often do you need to do that?
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.
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.
They don't have to prove nobody is using it, just that nobody is talking about it - the first would be impossible. Perhaps the doctor thought it was obvious, or taught it first-hand and there was no literature.
This is the problem with patents though. The government gives out a monopoly on entire ideas (as carefully divorced from a set of actions as a lawyer can manage). Woe unto anyone and everyone else as the economy suffers under the dead-weight of all these trolls. They were a bad idea when introduced and the pace of advancement has made them ridiculous.
I saw a similar story (though of a much smaller scale). A tow-truck towed the wrong car, badly, and then abandoned it ruined on the side of the road when the error was discovered. By the time the owner found their vehicle a few hours later the towing company was dissolved. When the show investigated the owner had had many such companies.
This is why I advocate removing the so-called corporate veil. I feel that unless you actively pursue honest dealings in your company (forward all transactions to auditors, audit processes for holes, etc) that you should go down with the company if it's found to have committed a crime. All the way up to the shareholders. Investing in a company not sufficiently open for you to be sure it's really clean should get you in trouble if it's not, like buying a TV for a too-good-to-be-true price.
If these patent trolls were unwound after failure and traced back to their owners, which were similarly unwound, all the way to the people who ordered their illegal actions I wouldn't have half the problem with patents that I do.
But the bill should be footed by the person applying for the patent, not by the taxpayer.
So only the richest corporations can afford patents, giving them yet another way to lord over everyone else.
This is just one of the indicators that patents are broken. Society shouldn't foot the bill for these games and inventors shouldn't have to play games to get any rewards we think they're due.
Hey, I'm all for removing patent laws entirely. But if we do, let's do so openly; let us not pervert law so that they still exist but are too expensive to use.
You mean like they already are? But yes, I agree. Let's not break them further and risk being stuck with that.
As is they're essentially worthless to R&D (lawyers profit from them, but I doubt that was the spirit of the law), they cause a ton of trouble, and they're based on a morally indefensible monopoly grant that keeps independent creators from using their own work. (As seen here.)
Patents should be abolished.
You are onto something... childrens... we could use the children to crush the patent system. People just need to say: OMG! THINK OF THE CHILDREN! LET HOSPITALS RESEARCH STUFF! And the patent system might be steamrolled in order to let researcher find new cures for the children.
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.
The known or used part still pertains to public knowledge. That's the purpose of patents: to encourage the disclosure of trade secrets. If the invention was being used secretly, a second party can independently discover the invention and patent it. The first party can't come back and say "sorry, invalid patent, we were using that before you." Patent law would respond "tough shit, you should have filed then".
We won't go into interferences, first to invent, swearing back, etc. It gets even more complicated. But those only come into play if both parties filed.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
> "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.
Oh, I don't have a side. I just try to educate people about patents one step at a time. This seemed a good opportunity. I'm by no means a patent expert, but deal with them (patents and experts) enough to get frustrated at all the misinformation out there. I wouldn't be surprised if Salk was treating it as a trade secret. More out of hubris than anything else. Scientists all too often keep technologies secret as part of the "I'm smarter than you" game to win recognition, influence and grant money. But I'm more inclined to agree with you that they weren't deliberately keeping it a secret, they just hadn't disseminated the technique either. Here's a story you'll appreciate: I developed some technology for an employer. Much of it they patented. Some they decided not to. A couple times they designated the ideas as trade secrets and gave me a nice wooden plaque ... that describes the trade secret. Suitable for hanging on my wall, even though I don't work there anymore.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.