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Stem Cell Research Running Into IP Brick Walls
hlovy writes "The profit motive can — yes, shockingly — drive biotech research. But, according to a report by the AFP news agency, this same drive to make money is actually putting the brakes on embryonic stem cell research. With the research already set back years due to government research bans, US scientists now face roadblocks because other universities or companies have secured exclusive rights."
I could argue that the exact same situation holds true in the world of software and mobile devices (especially UI) worlds. The key difference is that these stem cell companies are all suing each other up front. What are they thinking? That's the honorable way to conduct yourself when you hold intellectual property but certainly not the most profitable. Haven't they learned that you're supposed to wait until an infringing product is sold the world over with their highest stock price in years before you start the license extortion/lawsuit?
My work here is dung.
The way IP SHOULD work is this : first of all, compulsory licensing. If you patent any idea, or ask for government protection against unauthorized people who pirate or create a knockoff of your product, then you MUST
1. Offer terms for a license to the technology, with rates proportional to the industry and the value of the product
2. Provide the technical details needed for someone else who licenses your idea to begin work within 30 days of payment of initial fees for licensing.
The biases only deal with embryonic stem cell research, which is but a subset of all types of stem cell research. For the record, I don't think you need a religious bias to object to embryo farming or similar (since this is /., we are allowed/required to carry out what-could-happen as far as possible)
Much more important than a petty political point is pointing out that exclusivity contracts in medical research are stupid. We should be attempting to advance as quickly as humanly and ethically possible in these fields, and awarding exclusivity for profit motivated (don't kid yourself, they are) universities and research institutions is damaging and nonsensical.
It is, but without the ban on government funding of that research, a lot of the research would now be publicly funded and therefore public domain. Instead, the private sector filled in, and have managed to get exclusive patents on a lot of the stuff they researched, meaning that even if the government or other companies do the legwork themselves the results cannot be applied to further research.
If the government funds the discovery of "a process to replace organs using self-donated tissue and stem cells", then many companies can refine that technique, apply it, and the one who comes up with a way to do it the most cheaply and effectively wins (but everyone else can apply it in different ways which may be more suitable for different organs, etc).
If a private company funds the discover of the same process, they can patent it, and no one else has any incentive to make improvements to the process unless the company that funded it is feeling generous.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Bury the real scientists in a mountain of FUD.
Make great advancements, but don't pursue them unless they produce a profit.
While you're not using those advancements, be sure to sue everyone who stumbles upon what you stumbled upon first.
University researchers should be exempt by law from paying patent royalties/licenses.
Period.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
ah yes. way to go American government. lets send another industry that could create jobs and money for the country elsewhere because of our ridiculous laws due to money backed lobbyists.
Bryan
It wasn't banned, it just wasn't funded by government. Stem cell research was welcome to continue, just not using government money.
That's nice and all, but government granted time limited monopolies on certain technologies (commonly referred to as "patents") are the problem here. Remove those, and everyone can benefit from research and increased competition. Then it won't matter who pays the check; everyone can benefit. Paying companies to not patent things (which is what this amounts to) is a round about way of just getting rid of the things.
SSC
quite simply should be cancelled and banned. If some pharma company actually INVENTS some new gene that CANNOT occur due to natural mutation then fine, but when it occurs naturally ANYWHERE in nature then nobody should have the right to patent it. Clearly it was NOT their invention and discoveries and inventions are very different things. Patents on "business methods" and software should also be blanket cancelled and forbidden, the first because it's a ridiculous concept and the second because software is a written work and already covered by copyright law. Neither is a physical innovation, which is what patents were supposed to cover.
This is just one more field where current patent and copyright law hinders innovation. You cannot have a monopoly and pretend other people to innovate. Unless something change, the US future in science and technology is going to be crippled in the next couple of decades because of the overprotective nature of the current IP laws. As a side note, the idea that a company can be innovative while having profit as its ultimate objective is sorely misguided.
Jonas Salk refused to patent the polio vaccine.. 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?"
There is no 'greater good' research anymore, as long as people get their $. Capitalism: A Love Story is an interesting movie. Yes, it is Michael Moore, but if you go in expecting some slant it's entertaining to see how stuff has changed from "I'm not going to patent something that saved people from the Iron Lung" to "Screw you guys, I gotta get my patents".
Doesn't this all stem from a desire to maintain the status quo. By preventing others from outshining them, those in power retain power. Be it economic or political, stifling innovation in the competition has always been the award for coming out on top.
Of blankness, I know nothing.
I thought the whole point of the patent system was that the Inventions became public knowledge, such that inventors (and researchers) *could* in fact, learn from them and improve on them.
Of course, if a researcher did make a breakthrough, actually bringing a product to market would require co-operation with the original patent holder for licensing / cross-licensing, but that is not a barrier to research.
Yours is just wishful thinking. The issue is way more serious of who is the party in power. Do not be shortsighted. The current laws are not serving the purpose they were created for, and are only aligned with the interest of a few opportunistic companies. Look at the impact of patents in the software industry if not.
Imagine, Researchers not getting their own way, first that mean bunch of Conservative think the people of the US should not have to pay for them trying to play god. Then, Goodness they have to compete for private funds; gasp!!! Then the people that did invest want ownership of the results; the savages. Lest be completely honest about this. Most organizations that do medical research live off of government money, they think they know better then everyone else. They cry and cry when they do not get their own way, then if they do succeed, they want the money from it. Guess what folks, this is still a Free enterprise country. If you patent a process, if you pay to have it developed, you own it, the government should have 0 say in it. Remember, the Saulk group developed the polio Vaccine as a profit making project.
Projects which accept federal grant money should require their products [patents, papers, etc.] to be placed in the public domain.
I'm not particularly happy with private companies patenting stem cell research, but if they're patenting actual functioning procedures, then I might rescind my objections.
"When I came to ACT to try to do it with stem cells I couldn't because the rights to use embryonic stem cells for diabetes had been exclusively licensed to Geron," he said."
I hope that this is a poorly worded quote. "Using stem cells to cure diabetes" doesn't sound patentable to me. Perhaps they patented using the most logical path to curing diabetes? If it was so logical, how did it meet the patentability criteria? If it was so vague, how again?
Lanza said his company has spent around 100 million dollars of investor funds on its research, and has had to play the game of securing intellectual property (IP) rights in order to compete.
"I am coming from a company where we have blocking IP as well," Lanza said. "In order for us to get money we have to file patents to protect our rights otherwise we get prohibited from even pursuing our own technology.
That's not how it's supposed to work. Of course, it might be cheaper to patent than defend against infringement claims, but that's also not how it should work.
Are we hitting the point where patents are being held defensively here also? I hope that at the very least, cross-licensing will become common enough to not prevent research. Additional expenses will be passed onto consumers and move research overseas, which can hardly be good for the US.
Our screwed up system here in the U.S. will only serve to send more and more scientists overseas to work where they can be free of this type of insanity.
I know that if I was a 25 year old who had a degree in biology or engineering, I'd make a bee-line to Asia. The insanity concerning IP, copyrights, non-disclosure contracts, and on and on, plus the impossibility to finding work in the U.S. right now. There's so much red tape to do anything in this country now that everyone simply has lost the will to do anything about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks
I wonder what rights the descendants of this woman have in regards to all of this IP bullshit? Could they not simply claim rights and then allow full use by all? A global free-licensing, so to speak?
Without this woman and her wonderful cells, none of this research would be happening. None.
...they're running IPv4. They need update to IPv6, then they won't have those problems.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Why do you think that embryonic stem cell research will lead to embryo farming, and why is simply banning embryo farming itself not sufficient to solve the problem?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"I'm sorry Dr. Frankenstein, but you have no right to use the intellectual property of life, The exclusive rights for life have been secured by the University of Transylvania. A mob of lawyers with pitchforks and torches is on its way here. You could appeal to the Dean of the Department of Screwing Around with Stem Cells at the University of Transylvania, Professor Dracula. But the only responses that I have received from him are, and I quote, 'Blaeh! Blaeh! Blaeh!' Before I could press the matter further, he turned himself into a bat, and flew away. Obviously, they are very advanced with their stem cell research."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
After all, there is no IP law in the middle of the pacific.
Let me see if I got this straight, some guy is complaining that since he couldn't use Federal money to do the research he wanted to do, someone beat him to it and now if he pursues it he won't be able to make as much money as he would like. Is that about the gist of this? /.ers are using that as an excuse to bash Bush for funding some embryonic stem cell research. He should have followed Clinton's lead and not allowed any federal fundign for embryonic stem cell research.
And some
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The laws are written by lobbyists, it doesnt matter what party is in power.
You actually believe that research and development funded with tax money winds up in the public domain? What a naive liberal.
The way it works is that public money is given to universities and such which have aggressive patent portfolio departments. They operate these patent portfolios in order to extract as much money from the private sector as possible licensing the IP that they "developed" using tax money.
Its the same with copyrights on software. Tax money funds the development of software which is then made into proprietary products.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
What would suddenly make politicians resistant to pettiness, bias and corruption for the first time in history?
Rule of thumb: Only let politicians make decisions where it doesn't matter if that's what's controlling them. Reserve the rest of the decisions for individuals. Reform will ebb and flow, it will look more chaotic and piecemeal, but on average you'll get the better end result sooner.
Pi Ran Out
We've stayed far ahead in Science at all for the past fifty years. Capitalism really isn't the best way to build the future.
There is no -1 Disagree.
Remove those, and everyone can benefit from research and increased competition
Everyone except for the people paying for the research, that is. All they get are the bills and the lawsuits.
Patents exist to encourage research spending. If there's no expectation of being able to recoup your research costs, why research at all? Why not just wait for other companies to pay for the research, then swoop in and take all the profit yourself? Except there won't be "other companies" doing the research, as they won't be interested in footing the bill without compensation either.
Might as well pass a law saying "the private sector is forbidden to do R&D, all research will be publicly funded in accordance with the personal and political whims of bureaucrats who control the budget allocations deciding what will, and won't, be researched". Same result: no private sector research, and public research strangled by the Christian Reich.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
wasn't the patent system created so that researchers would build upon existing knowledge? It was the answer to the problem of guild trade secrets not allowing progress in the field.
I.e I should be able to do research and patent the results, while having the patent as an "upgrade" to another patent. This is the most pure result of patents working exactly the opposite as they were intended - stifling research and innovation.
> exclusivity contracts in medical research are stupid.
I don't think that's exactly the problem. The article is about patents.
Lots of people have problems with biotech patents because it seems immoral to patent a life form.
I sympathize with that view, but in my opinion DNA is software. On patenting software I like Donald Knuth's view, that software is math and it makes no sense to patent math.
Embryo farming is already illegal.
The *only* way embryonic stem cells can be sourced is from left over in-vitro fertilization work.
There was no ban on research. There was a ban on Government funding the research.
Yawn. Another post about how the market solves everything, despite having zero evidence that this is the case.
...sorry... --or from passing/growing of established embryonic stem cell lines that have been around for 20-ish years.
Yawn. Another braying about another post, claiming there being zero evidence without providing any evidence themselves.
The profit motive is great. However, have you ever tried to put together a business plan longer then 10 years? Engage in high risk research? [In the sense that very little of it becomes profitable]. Or that your best ideas will be stolen by your competitors? After all, it normally takes 10+ years to go from idea to table top to the factor floor? And big ideas are not patentable.
I am all for corporations exploiting the profit motive, but you want the right tool for the right job. And basic research, with it positive externalities which are not captured by the bottom line, is something that government is good at.
Now, all we need to do is talk about post docs who hoard research so they can be first to publish. The profit motive is not the only issue.
Yes, but James Thompson, the man who patented the embryonic stem cell, has not patented any novel DNA or idea. He patented something he didn't invent nor engineer; he patented something he had nothing to do with aside from observation, and only won because our patent system is so out of date it doesn't know how to address life forms, and that he was the first person to try to.
This same jerkoff (or is it the patent system that's wrong here) charges you $200k licensing per year to do any biomedical research with it, and $5k a year for universities to license simply to do any academic research at all.
Nothing about the patent is worthy of a patent. On the contrary, Yamanaka's Induced Pluripotent Stem cell work is patentable, as he has invented novel ways to revert differentiated cells to stemness. Sheng Ding has also pioneered new methods that don't include lentiviral methods (like Yamanaka), and instead use small molecules that are homologous to the desired IPSC-inducing biochemicals (Sox2, nanog, oct4, etc).
To offer some contrast: if Yamanaka were like Thompson, he could have patented the IDEA of 'reverting differentiated cells to stem-like cells exhibiting stemness". And in doing so he would be able to cover with his patent that which Ding has done, despite Ding having his own method. But I'm sure nearly every democratic voter here would agree that Yamanaka and Ding have achieved the same end by different means, and thus would each have patents to their methodology.
Fortunately, IPSC are *NOT* ESC, and so for now people can do stem-cell research without paying the JT tax simply because JT was 'first'.
Of course, noone banned either research or technology in the case of stem cell research. Or even of embryonic stem cell research.
Refusal to pay for something is not actually the same thing as banning it.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
By accident, I RTFA; it's Friday, I blame myself. So, if I have a patent for some type of therapy that has yet to be proven; then everyone owes me money. But if my patent causes harm to someone then I am not to blame? Cool. But something smells like fish 3 days in the sun. I don't see a cure for "...paralysis, blindness and diabetes...", using anything; from my viewpoint, there is no valid claim. If business is pleading with the government about regulations, lets start with dissolving the patent office.
I don't plan to pay you (anyone reading this) to establish a church on Mars. You may think it's a good idea, but I have objections.
However, please don't interpret this as a ban on your doing so.
If you do, you are dum.
Thanks,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
http://james-boyle.com/ http://www.thepublicdomain.org/
"Chapter 7: The Enclosure of Science and Technology: Two Case Studies"
http://yupnet.org/boyle/archives/162
"Think of the reaction of the synthetic biologists at MIT. They feared that the basic building blocks of their new discipline could be locked up, slowing the progress of science and research by inserting intellectual property rights at the wrong point in the research cycle. To solve the problem they were led seriously to consider claiming copyright over the products of synthetic biology -- to fight overly broad patent rights with a privately constructed copyright commons, to ride the process of legal expansion and turn it to their own ends. As I pointed out earlier, I think the tactic would not fare well in this particular case. But it is an example of a new move in the debate over intellectual property, a new tactic: the attempt to create a privately constructed commons where the public domain created by the state does not give you the freedom that you believe creativity needs in order to thrive. It is to that tactic, and the distributed creativity that it enables, that I will turn to now."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Patents exist to encourage research spending.
But there's simply no empirical evidence to suggest that they actually do. See Boldrin and Levine "Against Intellectual Monopoly"
Being the first to market has huge advantages, and second most of the time R&D costs to actually get a copy system worked out is comparable to the original R&D costs.
The only notable exception is in pharmaceuticals because of the FDA. There are huge costs getting a drug approved for market (which dwarf the development costs). The solution is to separate drug manufacture, and drug effectiveness testing companies. Given the recent track record or the pharmacological companies, I don't see how a public drug effectiveness testing program could to much worse.
The bio feild is especially bogged down by patents. It is almost impossible to do any sort of research without trampling on a patent. Allowing someone to sequence a gene found in nature was a bad idea.
Right scientific, industrial, and computing methods are very precise, but patents are written very broadly. The only people winning are the lawyers and patent trolls.
It seems like any technologically developing country with a large internal market (HINT: INDIA) would be the death of the Western R&D business model sooner rather than later.
We've got a nice little ball of patents acting like the Tar Baby (look it up, kids), enveloping all who dare approach. The "success" of this model, however, depends on everyone agreeing to the same set of rules. The first time an American doctor tells a patient "They can cure that in Asia" will be the signal to dump every single one of your stocks.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
Oh wait....that's right. There IS NO BAN....NO SPOON NEITHER...
There is only a ban on using Federal funds (ie: American taxpayer money) on fetal stem cell research. Which has yet to show any results that supersede what we've been able to achieve with adult stem cells. And given another decade or so will likely be a moot point.
Did you RTFA? The author says they have to file patents or risk being locked out of selling/working on their own technology by someone else patenting it out from under them.
Discoveries should never be patentable.
Consider them "naturally occurring prior art" if you like. They're already well and truly the "public domain". When you discover something, then although the dicovery might be new, what you have dicovered is not. It always was there for anyone and everyone to use. To suddenly claim that from now on, only you're allowed to use it and nobody else, is absurd.
Note: There's nothing to stop you from keeping it secret until you've worked out a way to capitalise on it.
Inventions could perhaps be patentable, for a time
Have you invented some clever new way of doing something? Someone else could invent the same thing anytime, completely independently from you. A patent should give you enough time to get your business up and running so you have a head start on your competition. Though, is that fair to the other inventor? And preventing the use of an excellent invention stymies other creations.
Personally, I prefer no patents, as it's much harder for an individual to get a patent than it is for large organisations.
Note: There's nothing to stop you from keeping it secret until you've worked out a way to capitalise on it.
Creations should be copyrightable
Have you created some form of artwork? Your brainchild, your creation, your baby, yours. But if you want to popularise your creation, then consider that DRM and copyright laws are there to control (ie. limit) popularisation, so using them may not always be the best option.
In short, there ought to be no patents, especially regarding discoveries.
Software is "just math" in exactly the same way math is "just numbers". Which is not at all. Software is a complex set of instructions that performs electronic work. Just like a physical machine is a complex set of parts that performs mechanical work. Only an average software program is orders of magnitude more complex (more moving parts, if you will) than the most complicated physical machine.
You can describe a catapult using pretty simple mathematics, that doesn't make it trivial to build one. Show me a mathematician at a computer terminal and I'll show you abstruse spaghetti code. You could let a million mathematicians hammer out code for a million years and not come up with anything resembling facebook. Programming is about choosing and assembling innumerable building blocks in precise ways to accomplish useful tasks. It has fuck-all to do with math except in a limited theoretical sense (algorithmic complexity and all that).
Which is not to say today's software patents aren't overbroad - they are. But to categorically exclude software patents as different from mechanical endeavors is to fundamentally misunderstand what software is.
I am a computer scientist and I am a patent lawyer.
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch.
Hahaha, sadly, you're right...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I'm doing this from memory, in a rush, so feel free to correct:
Saying that "it just wasn't funded by government" is actually less accurate than saying "it was banned". Doing embryonic stem cell research (outside of certain preexisting lines) meant that an organization was banned from almost all government funding, even for completely unrelated matters - and the Supreme Court has found that kind of thing to be a punishment. So the research was banned in every relevant sense, it's just that the punishment wasn't a fine or imprisonment but rather ineligibility for funding. And this leaves somewhat dishonest people just enough wiggle room to say that it wasn't really a ban.
I think the issue most slashdotters have is the lack of acknowledgment to alternate licensing methods (FLOSS), and the conflict patent law creates. An exemption for such software would cure most such problems, even if patents remain broad. Though after a certain limit, the described algorithms are too abstract and catchall to be reasonably patented. Not to mention patents on formats...
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.