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Australian Federal Court Rules For Patent Over Breast Cancer Gene
Bulldust writes "The Federal Court in Australia has ruled in favor of U.S. biotechnology company Myriad Genetics, enabling them to continue to hold the patent over the so-called breast cancer gene BRCA1. The same patent is also being reconsidered by the U.S. Supreme Court in the current session. From the article: 'Federal court Justice John Nicholas has ruled that a private company can continue to hold a patent over the so-called breast cancer gene BRCA1, in a decision that has devastated cancer victims.The decision is the first in Australia to rule on whether isolated genes can be patented, and will set a precedent in favor of commercial ownership of genetic material.'"
So the patent constitutes of the position of the sequence and the information at that position? Another thing why i think the patent system is broken.
This is another example of where the patenting system (around the World it seems) has just gone completely stupid. A gene is a naturally occuring entity and should not be patentable. Patents are there to give right of ownership of a novel idea, concept or mechanism, not things that already exist in nature. Have I got to patent myself now to stop anybody else from 'owning' me?
Smivs on the intertubes!
instead of the research staying a trade secret
False dichotomy.
it's monopolised for 20 years
20 years of unnecessary deaths so capitalism can have its way.
and then in the public domain
Except that it will likely trigger further monopolised research which receives other protections or is kept secret.
this is devastating for cancer victims?
Yes. Greed kills people.
Any society organised on competition instead of cooperation, where a man's ultimate goal is to please himself rather than to lift up the world, will result in a lot of death. An extreme will always be harmful. Only a careful balance of individual vs group demands, as in the social democracy practised in Europe up to the early '80s, produces progress.
A couple of points:
1. The research wasn't completely privately conducted (universities, and other government-funded organisations were involved), so I think there is probably some reasonable expectation that the community will benefit as a result.
2. I don't think it is acceptable for the manufacturer of the test to be able to set whatever price it chooses, even if that involves mandated licensing. That isn't to say that the business should not be able to make a respectable profit - after all, there was some risk involved on their part. However, because of the implications of the government-granted monopoly I think it is fair to have some constraints on that monopoly even within the 20 years.
3. The real issue is actually the patenting of the gene itself. Patenting of the test is fine: it is an invention, and so a monopoly can be granted on that. However, the same can't be said of the genes.
Patents give an exclusive monopoly on the patented material. What exactly does a patent on a human genetic sequence give you? Does this mean that anyone with that sequence in their genome has violated the patent?
Perhaps its my ignorance of genetic medicine, but the only way I can see this 'invention' being useful is in developing a test for predisposition to breast cancer. Does this mean no-one else is allowed to test for that genetic sequence?
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If you read the ruling this Justice is out of line and is not upholding the law, but creating it.
In response to an argument that this is a discovery and not an invention he actually states that if society does not provide financial incentive, companies wont be incentivised to perform genome research.
So basically he has extended the concept of a patent to include discoveries in addition to inventions because he has a personal belief that because it takes lots of money to discover a particular gene, the discoverer should therefore have a monopoly on it.
It is not his role to extend or create laws, it is his role to enforce the law as written, and no law has been passed stating that we as a nation consider a discovery worthy of a patent.
That's it! I'm patenting oxidane. That's better than Brawndo anyway.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
If the company owns our genes, shouldn't they be held responsible then they go wrong?
so now cancer sufferers are willfuly producing cancer genes, in violation of patent law.
stop it! or fines/imprisonment may result.
1. The research wasn't completely privately conducted (universities, and other government-funded organisations were involved), so I think there is probably some reasonable expectation that the community will benefit as a result.
I believe there was practically no private research, since Myriad was founded after the gene was already located in chromosome 17 and it was only a matter of time for the teams in different universities to pinpoint the location and find out the sequence. Furthermore, the company was founded by some of the university researchers that took part (well, their labs took part, at least) in the search for the gene.
Myriad was funded to patent the gene, to put it plain and simple. And by holding a patent not just to their gene test, but any BRCA1 sequence test, they have prevented anybody else for figuring out *why* mutations in BRCA1 may cause breast cancer.
Tribe of amazons patents Y chromosome and demands immediate seizure and destruction of all infringing articles worldwide.
3. The real issue is actually the patenting of the gene itself. Patenting of the test is fine: it is an invention, and so a monopoly can be granted on that. However, the same can't be said of the genes.
can you get sued for carrying or expressing the gene without a license?
As of Postgres v6.2, time travel is no longer supported.
I believe there was practically no private research... the company was founded by some of the university researchers that took part
So much uni research ends up like this, from gene patents to Google itself, that it's almost immoral to engage in certain sorts of research at particular universities.
Perhaps you can live with yourself for murdering 12% of the population every year due to your purchased federal justice, but that doesn't make you right, only a selfish asshole that no one likes.
Discoveries are already instantly in the public domain since there is nothing to build and nothing has been invented.
Why should anyone get a 20 year monopoly for doing literally jack shit all but kill people?
What about a few thousands of years of prior art?
There is only one person who owns my genes: me.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
I claim prior art. There is a report of a guy in the middle east who used this substance as an alternative to blood consumption two thousand years ago. The process is still performed regularly.
American judges, at least in Texas, are dirt cheap.
That did not prevent the patent to be upheld by court. So your point is?
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
The idea is on a shaky ground. It's basically a corporate pharma interest (huge lobby) vs public interest.
Corporate pharma argues that to discover the exact gene, they need significant research, just like with medicine. This is true, though research requires much less then new medicine producing research. They also argue that it's an invention rather then discovery for the same reason why discovering certain molecules leads to new medicines. Molecules that existed in nature for ages, that can be transformed into some form of treatment therefore is patentable.
The obvious counter arguments are plentiful, but they lack the powerful lobby behind them, and current trend is "weak government representing people, strong corporate lobby representing potential profits". Results can be seen in the ruling on top of the page.
I am not in favor of patents on genes. I think it is unjustified and immoral. I think methods of detection of certain types of genes may be warranted if the test method is something new that isn't already in use for other genes. It must be more than "use of gene detection method X to find gene BRCA1," where X is a established method. Even if the test is novel, I think there should be some kind of equivalent to FRAND licensing that is required to obtain the patent on the test. Seems to me that the human genome is a "standard essential" to life.
GENERATION 27: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
cause that's where the interest of BRCA1 lies ...
I'll assume these 'judges' are mere idiots. The only other alternative would be bribe-takers. Karma now demands the Breast Cancer Fairy visit their families.
The patent is about the method of diagnosis of a certain genetic condition using the mentioned gene. Couldn't find the reference yet, only Wikipedia.
-- --
How does the patent office (and the judge) have the audacity to grant and uphold something like that? Last time I checked, patents were for "inventions" and not for "discoveries".
What about prior art, goddamnit. These genes OBVIOSLY existed before they were "invented" by the medical companies.
it's monopolised for 20 years
20 years of unnecessary deaths so capitalism can have its way.
You mean "mercantilism". Capitalism by itself doesn't really care about free vs controlled market, but you can have both free market capitalism and that where only large accumulation of capital matters (great landlords in the past, big corporations nowadays). Note that mercantilism is not directly an opposition of free market, just mostly so -- unlike communism, it allows limited economic freedoms outside of big interests that the government chooses to support.
Our governments do so not even out of malice, mostly due to corruption. Yet the effects are clear: war on culture (copyright), war on innovation (patents), with effects that include 20 years of unnecessary deaths in this very article.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
financially, morally, &c. for the care of _everyone_ who has the gene. Not just health care, feeding, housing, clothing, educating --- _everything_.
If they're not willing to step up to the plate and be financially responsible for their property, it's abandoned and no longer theirs.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Um... I'm new here, so that's it for now.
congratulations. Sue them till they drop dead, then sue them again for patent infringement.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Umm, isn't the cancer itself prior art? Anyone who developed the BRCA1 mutation could claim to have created it previously.
This flies in the face of everything I understood about patents previously. Can someone in the know explain what's going on here?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
A company has spent a fortune isolating a gene and identifying what the implications of mutations in that gene are.
That is a good and useful thing, right? We would like to encourage that.
Now then, how do we reward the company for their work?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Patents are for methods. Fighting cancer by affecting this gene's expression is a method. My understanding is that that's why it's patentable under current law. If you discovered that this gene also coded for lollipops, using it to manufacture lollipops would be separately patentable by my understanding.
The goals of patents are twofold: 1. Allow one to recoup investment in research, and 2. Give an incentive to fully share information instead of keeping it as trade secrets. One might argue that in this case it did neither (since the research was separately funded and the scientific publication system already incentivized sharing), but any change in the law to exclude this case should still try to protect those two principles, IMHO.
E pluribus unum
A couple of points: 1. The research wasn't completely privately conducted (universities, and other government-funded organisations were involved), so I think there is probably some reasonable expectation that the community will benefit as a result.
That's not how we do things here, you, you... agitator. We socialize the expense and privatize the profit, and call it "free market". And we will thank you to not confuse our fanboys here who think that they are oh-so uber cool because the read Rand once. The sheep take what we give them and we give them what makes money for us, and we pay a lot of money to "the government" to make sure that it stays that way. So stop rocking the damned boat.
Maybe preventing anyone else from figuring out why mutations in BRCA1 may cause breast cancer was the whole point of granting the patent? But then maybe I'm just paranoid.
One way patenting genes differs from patenting some kind of mechanism, is that there's almost always another way to accomplish what that mechanism does. I've heard a number of engineers make statements to the effect that the most important thing about an invention is that what it does is possible. So while a monopoly on a mechanism design is valuable, it does not stop all competition in that field of endeavor.
A monopoly on a fact about nature isn't like that. If somebody claimed a patent on gravity, there are no alternatives. If someone patents a gene's involvement in a certain disease, there is no substitute for that fact to be discovered.
Monopolizing genetic treatment and diagnosis of breast cancer by patenting BRCA1 is like monopolizing all flying and lifting machines by patenting gravity.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I've got a patent on obvious and you're in violation. Cease and desist immediately or I'll send my lawyers off to East Texas and sue your ass.
You can still go bankrupt, even with an LLC. What won't happen is that some ditz who bought a hot beverage and spilled it in there lap and got burned because they couldn't be bothered to hold it while driving their car and texting can't bankrupt both the business and you personally, taking all your possessions in a lawsuit.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
free market
Ex aequo with "capitalism" this is the shortest joke about economy.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
their.... muscle memory typo. sigh...
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
suggesting that communists save lives while capitalists kill?
You require professional help, preferably in isolation, if you think opposite. Hint: except for science, free software movement, and groups described here there wasn't communism on Earth so far.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
This can be contributed to capitalism in the same way long bread lines can be contributed to communism. Both have issues related to how they get implemented in the real world and when they interact with other systems. In capitalism, companies influencing the state (or other entities) to get a monopoly is on of the issues that arrise when you use the system in the real, non-idealized world.
Now, what is false is trying to claim communism would somehow fix the problem since it has its own issues when implemented, which we saw play out over the last few decades... but those issues also arrise from how it implements and interacts with other systems and are not present in its idealized form.
In case no one else recognizes what is wrong with this:
1. Profiting from the misery of others. (Obvious and immoral)
2. Patenting doom.
I guess #2 needs more explanation. Suppose someone creates a genetic mutation which is somehow not only inheritable, but communicable. (Say, through some sort of virus or something) Now, they can be the first to discover it and patent it as well. Then, if a cure is found by anyone, the creators can then seek to profit from it.
Less bad scenario: Another genetic anomaly which is triggered by some weird thing I'm not going to bother imagining just now. Suddenly, global exposure enabled this anomaly to be realized and, let's say, an explosion in autism results. Someone isolates that and makes a windfall from the patent while researchers are still trying to cure the problem or even the isolate the cause/trigger.
Now that I think of it, #1 and #2 are pretty much the same thing. But I'm not going to re-write this. But #2 does say that someone can create the malady for which they have gained a patent. It's not unlike the hell caused by the likes of Monsanto right? So it's not a huge stretch of the imagination here -- we're already seeing similar things.
I thought it was already well established that to have a patent, you have to have created something. They didn't create this... as far as we know right? So it [should] goes without saying that patenting things that occur in nature and math shouldn't happen.
Good thing UPTSO wasn't around when Christopher Columbus "discovered" what he thought was India.
And if they had a patent office like we have today; it's a good thing he thought he found a passage to India. He might have patented it anyway if he thought it was a "New" country.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Which speaks to a great need to reform how research is funded in the US. Right now, Universities depend on a combination of private funding and their own patent portfolio. Without those two sources their ability to do public research would be severely reduced or completely broken. What we could really use is a new funding structure where researches get the resources they need (say, from NSF and other such organizations) and in return all research results are open for usage by private entities... then companies that actually mange to take basic research and turn it into something marketable still profit, but they can not lock other people out.
CEO Your appointment to FEMA should be finalized within the week. I've already discussed the matter with the Senator.
MANAGER I take it he was agreeable?
CEO He didn't really have a choice.
MANAGER Has he been infected?
CEO Oh yes, most certainly. When I mentioned that we could put him on the priority list for the vaccine, he was so willing it was almost pathetic.
MANAGER This cancer -- the rioting is intensifying to the point where we may not be able to contain it.
CEO Why contain it? Let it spill over into the schools and churches, let the bodies pile up in the streets. In the end, they'll beg us to save them.
MANAGER I've received reports of armed attacks on shipments. There's not enough vaccine to go around, and the underclasses are starting to get desperate.
CEO Of course they're desperate. They can smell their death, and the sound they'll make rattling their cage will serve as a warning to the rest.
MANAGER Mmm. I hope you're not underestimating the problem. The others may not go as quietly as you think -- intelligence indicates they're behind the problems in Paris.
CEO A bunch of pretentious old men playing at running the world. But the world left them behind long ago. We are the future.
CEO We've had to endure much, you and I, but soon there will be order again, a new age. Aquinas spoke of the mythical City on the Hill. Soon that city will be a reality, and we will be crowned its kings. Or better than kings. Gods.
It's another good sign that people are truly waking up to the reality of what kind of society humanity needs going forward. There's no way a "capitalist society" can manage dwindling resources on a finite planet -- or "reducing markets" which would occur if we started to deal with overpopulation.
A few years ago, I finally read comments on Slashdot that were against the "sainted" Libertarian culture that was so prevalent. Perhaps some young studs who could program were now older, and realized that they wouldn't always be healthy, nor that everyone they knew was always going to "win" or lose based on merit. You get some maturity and you realize "shit happens" -- we aren't always in control.
So now I'm reading someone talking about "mercantilism" and I have hope again for the future. Every knuckle-dragger who wants to promote "unfettered free markets" -- as if there is such a thing outside of a failed state -- refers to Communism (and not the "good" kind). Mercantilism, however, was something our sainted "founding fathers" supported, and it doesn't have the taint of "foreign solutions".
The next thing you know, people are going to realize that we could have the Post Office be the bank since the "Big Government" already takes all the risk for the Banks anyway. Imagine a world where every politician didn't automatically have to be in the pocket of some bank just to get elected to anything above city council.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
> What won't happen is that some ditz who bought a hot beverage and spilled it in there lap and got burned
Sad to see people still completely and totally ignorant of the FACTS this many years later:
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
Now, what is false is trying to claim communism would somehow fix the problem since it has its own issues when implemented
What's even more egregiously false is claiming that this guy asked for "communism." He didn't: He said society would be better off with significantly less greed (I would put the percentage at somewhere between 25% and 40% less greed needed) and correctly implied that if we were able to achieve that we'd reap many benefits.
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We socialize the expense and privatize the profit, and call it "free market".
This, in a nutshell, is modern-American business boiled down: Work as hard as you can to avoid every dime of taxes you can, and when you fail, demand a bailout because you're "too big to fail." When things are back to normal? Resume the "bust-out" operation and double your bonus to make up for any money you weren't paid in the bailout year.
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Its perhaps worth noting that "capitalism" is a term created by socialists as a label for a particular economic system, and was chosen specifically because of the fact that the labelled system favored the capital-holding class.
So, its kind of funny to see people being surprised that capitalism favors capital, since the fact that it does that is why it is called "capitalism", rather than "happy equal fairness-ism".
>Our governments do so not even out of malice, mostly due to corruption.
Selfless malice is unusual, corruption, i.e. monetary interest is typical. I do not know why did you construct the sentence this way.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Competition for shared resources is not the same thing as raiding a farmer's field because you were too stupid or lazy to plan ahead.
You typed your message in on equipment developed by the modern equivalent of farmers, investing and developing.
I'm not defending the OP's issue, but your statment has been disproven -- humanity has tried systems where things were "much more oriented around the common good", meaning "not-capitalism", and all it yielded was people peeking over walls wondering why they had to stand in line 8 hours for bread while we had shelves full of boom boxes and blue jeans.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This still doesn't negate that she was a stupid ditz and sued for her own mistake.
Next you'll be telling me hammer manufacturers should be sued for not having a warning about smashing your fingers with the "hard" head.
separate comment on the coffee - it's made with boiling water, last I checked. BOILING Let that sink in for a bit. Waiting...Physics says that's 212F at sea-level. If you make it at home and serve immediately, it won't be 140F unless you have one big cold mug to pour it in.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Funny story.. kept on reading assuming I would eventually run into the fine print...ye know that little jem which says this is really about some clever method to detect a complex of genetic code not the code itself... such text never materialized.
Was it ommitted or have things actually devolved to the point where we are seriously now yabbin about direct attempts at patenting gods handiwork just cause someone discovered what it does?
I think the patent is the isolated (from its natural state) gene sequence. This article on the US court case, linked from the one you provided, has more details on the patent and the arguments for/against:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_for_Molecular_Pathology_v._Myriad_Genetics
I can't help but wonder what our world would be like if our current patent system was in place when man discovered things like gravity, fire, magnetism and electricity. I'm sure there are some good arguments for getting a patent on any and all use of those phenomena.
The patent appears to covers more than methods. It appears to cover the isolated DNA itself.
Since NIH and University of Utah (a public university) were involved in the discovery of the gene, there should be no way to keep the gene a trade secret.
The first seven claims in the patent are for "an isolated DNA" - the DNA itself, not some method of manipulating DNA or any treatment related to DNA.
Patent claims: http://www.google.com/patents/US5747282?printsec=claims#v=onepage&q&f=false
Anyone who engages in behaviour that could be considered foolhardy or reckless in nature is 100% responsible for the outcome.
Not 90%, not 99%, but 100%.
So is holding a cup of steaming coffee between your legs foolhardy or reckless? I certainly think so.
This means that MacDonald's was not in any way culpable, and the "facts" that you state are entirely irrelevant to this case.
Without competition, there wouldn't even be a society. Or people. Competition predates homo sapiens by a billion years. So no, I'm not sure you can convince me that competition is bad.
You're right, but you're forgetting the other half of why society continues to 'work' --albeit somewhat half-assed. Cooperation is essential for society to move forward, and I'd have to say it's probably more important than competition. Traffic is a place where people need to be more cooperative than competitive, IMO.
No sig for you! Come back one year!