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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.
It wasn't banned, it just wasn't funded by government. Stem cell research was welcome to continue, just not using government money.
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.
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".
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.
...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
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
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.
> 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.
Good news then.
The moment it seriously impedes profit for large business, it will change.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Government money is tax money, paid by all the residents of the country. If everybody paid for it, then everybody should own it. Therefore anything financed with public money should be in the public domain, no exceptions.
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'.
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