Patent Troll Going After Alzheimer's Researchers

An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from Nature News: "The website of the Alzheimer's Institute of America (AIA) doesn't reveal much about the organization, but portrays it as committed to supporting research and patients. Among people who study Alzheimer's disease, however, the AIA, based in St Louis, Missouri, is best known for filing lawsuits against companies and researchers — a practice that scientists say could hamper the progress of research into combating the dreaded disease."

Comments

Poetic justice

[Locke2005]

Can somebody equip an Alzheimer's patient with a few Uzi's, send him into these guys office, and tell him the office is full of Nazi's? He can claim he is not responsible for his actions due to his Alzheimer's, and these bastards can get the justice they so richly deserve.

I joined an Alzheimer's support group, but I keep forgetting to go to the meetings...

Re:Poetic justice

[pitchpipe]

Can somebody equip an Alzheimer's patient with a few Uzi's

There is no need. The judges that will oversee these cases will have no problem seeing the absurdity of this patent trolls claim's due to the proximity of Alzheimers to their own mortality. They only have a problem seeing patent/copyright trolls for what they are when it affects the young/poor.

Re:Poetic justice

[Locke2005]

Wait... why were you calling them? Were you actually planning on going in armed with automatic weapons?!? For God's sake, I was joking man! Please, please don't take my suggestion seriously!!!

And by the way, what is their real address? Because I have a, uh, friend who wants to know...

Re:I fucked your grandma!

[Locke2005]

That's because she's dead, you necrophiliac perv!

What shouldn't be patentable

[OverlordQ]

The suit concerns an AIA patent on a human DNA sequence used in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease.

This.

Re:What shouldn't be patentable

[Charliemopps]

It's not legal. Congress passed a provision in the 80's to allow companies to patent genetically modified crops so someone couldn't simply steal some seeds and resell them. The provision does not cover animals, and certainly not human DNA. The courts have continually failed to distiguish between the 2 and since congress sees the united states ecenomic future and being the worlds patent troll, they go right along with this shameful practice. There are even several AIDS drugs that were derived directly from blood samples taken from desperately poor prosititutes in Africa. They actually patented the poor womens entire DNA sequence. If anything gets you sent to hell, it's this sort of crap.

Re:What shouldn't be patentable

[bluefoxlucid]

Prior art being unpatentable, the playing of Go is not much widely suggested. In fact they don't much suggest anything easy, simple, or relatively available. Go is different than Sudoku and crosswords because it relies on mental processing more than pure mental recall; you have to analyze the board and determine what to recall all over the place, and then analyze various combinations, possible permutations, advantages, disadvantages... it's rather complex mental processing.

It's somewhat well established that mental activity keeps the brain healthy, and it's been suggested that such things prevent parkinsons and alzheimers; hell, even basic motor skills are considered helpful, so much that playing guitar or piano or using chopsticks all are known to at least partially protect the mind from decay to some level. Go is, of course, one of the more mentally challenging activities out there, demanding both logical and abstract reasoning, analytical calculation and recall; while piano or guitar has the added advantage of keeping fine control of the body nimble (Go is basically all mental, while instruments are physically and mentally demanding).

None of this shit is profitable.

I can't sell you a never-ending prescription to Go, or put you under nursing care of a piano home. You buy a piano or a guitar or a Go set (or get on KGS or IGS or Dragon for free) and you play.

Why in the hell would I want to fund long-running research into this, much less publicly suggest it, or encourage it? It doesn't make me any money, and might solve a problem before I can make money off the problem.

It turns out you can get patents on human DNA sequences for some reason. It also turns out you can sue researchers such that the only researchers that make any progress are dependent on paying fees to you or being sued into the ground. Making money off other peoples' work by being a gatekeeper providing no value is an amazing way to get rich, and it doesn't even help anyone, and you get to poise yourself as some amazing benevolent entity with access to (read: control of) all this innovative knowledge.

They can all go to hell.

Re:What shouldn't be patentable

[PFI_Optix]

After reading TFA, it sounds to me like the issue isn't with the use of the gene, but with the use of genetically modified rats, which should be protected under the same laws as GM crops. The article indicates the patent is actually on the "mouse models" and not the gene itself.

Not defending the suit, just playing trolls' advocate for a moment.

Good

[Anonymous Coward]

This is good. The trolls are (stupidly) getting into areas people really care about (rather than software innovation) and the backlash could be very useful in driving change.

Meanwhile, AIA CEO Darl McBride ...

[PolygamousRanchKid]

... demanded a $799 license fee from every sufferer of Alzheimer's Disease, since he owns the copyrights to the disease.

Darl: "How dare you develop that disease without paying me first!"

Wait

[Locke2005]

Shouldn't the AIA also be suing the Swedish family that has the gene? They are using it all the time, without permission, and their offspring are definitely profiting from it! A patent is a patent; it should cover every use of the patented method or device! Or perhaps you could just admit that maybe a sequence of genes that has occurred naturally for hundreds of years shouldn't be patentable in the first place...

Patent on human genes ...

[gstoddart]

This is why any form of patent on naturally occurring genes is complete and utter bullshit.

Is AIA also suing the Swedish family in which they found this mutation? Because, they're clearly infringing on the patent.

There is no way that it makes sense to be able to patent parts of someone else's DNA. This doesn't do anything to "further innovation" or any of the things people say patents are for ... it lets some idiot patent something he found (not created), sell it to a 3rd party, and then that 3rd party prevents other people from using it for research. DNA is a "fact" not an "invention".

In this case, I'd like to know which takes precedence .. the NIH requirement to share the mice, or this absurd "patent".

This is just so wrong.

Similar case over a breast cancer gene

[MobyDisk]

The EFF is fighting a similar battle over a patent on a gene that increases the risk of breast cancer. Appeals Court Hears Argument in the "Breast Cancer Gene" Case

Because Myriad owned the patents, testing on these two genes could only take place in Myriad’s own labs – meaning that others could not develop tests on those genes, depriving women from alternative (and cheaper) tests...in March 2010, the district court found in the plaintiffs’ favor and invalidated the patents....