Slashdot Mirror
WHO: Intellectual Property Claims Hindering Research On Deadly Novel Coronavirus
New submitter kwyjibo87 writes "The World Health Organization (WHO) publicly expressed dismay yesterday concerning news that intellectual property claims were hindering research on a deadly new emerging virus. Novel coronavirus (nCoV), a member of the same viral genus as the causative agent of SARS, has claimed the lives of 22 people (out of 44 reported infected) and left both researchers and health officials scrambling to develop effective diagnostic tests in addition to possible medications and vaccines against nCoV. Now, however, claims of intellectual property on the new virus are hindering research on nCoV according to the WHO, delaying advancements on tools to prevent further spread of the infection. Stories of intellectual property rights in science hindering advancements in research, particularly in clinical applications, are nothing new; the U.S. Supreme Court recently heard arguments on the validity of patents on the BRCA1/2 genes and has yet to issue a decision. The issue of sharing scientific information in order to promote faster research on emerging pathogens is not limited to intellectual property — a recent article in the journal Nature highlighted a case where Chinese researchers risked having their research scooped after uploading viral sequences to a public database designed aid global scientific collaboration."
You freeloaders should be ashamed. It takes a lot of money to do that kind of research, and all these poor, defenseless companies are doing is protecting their investment by patenting the genes they discovered so if and when they choose to further develop it, they will make a reasonable perfectly reasonable 3000% profit on every pill sold.
Not only that, but I think you're all forgetting a very important point here: This virus kills quickly, and any treatment would only last a few days. Where's the profit in that? Sure, it'll kill you, but you as a patient are worth far less than the guy with the limp dick and a few extra bucks to eat pills to make him hard again.
If you want the situation to change, you need to get sick with diseases that are treatable but long-term. We're simply not interested in short-term illness, regardless of whether it kills you or not. Any cures or treatments for a short-term illness are purely accidental and you should be thankful we even bothered to develop it and market it! Ungrateful poor people... jeez. Why can't you all just dry up and die?
Yours Truly,
Big Pharma
P.S. I know you're taking Ritalin your friend gave you to do better on the finals. Contact me privately and I can hook you up with a doctor of questionable repute who will give you your very own legal script. Remember: Unless it comes from Big Pharma, it's a Bad Drug(tm).
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
1) If the funding for research that led to the "patent" was in any part public, then the Patent needs to be public domain at least for non-profit research. Period.
2) If the funding for the research was not public, then the Government should pay for the patent, and make it public domain for non-profit continuing research.
Ether case, The patent should be still commercially viable for commercial purposes.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Fine, you knuckleheads want to claim ownership? How about some wrongful death suits?
Any survivors/Next of Kin should sue the commercial labs which are claiming patents.
I know Slashdot is a US centric site but please remember that there are many non-native-US-English speakers reading it as well. I'm a native English speaker but I don't know what "scooped" means in the context of TFS.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I thought patents did not prevent research that uses the patented material.
At any rate, allowing patents on discoveries (vs. inventions) is just stupid.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The subject says it all... smartass reply to the wrong post.
Now I'm afraid to take that new intelligence test.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
WHO==U.N.==SOCIALISM==COMMUNISM
Sure, maybe IP is *interfering* with scientific research in this case, but so what? If you take down the IP and interfering with corporations maximizing their profit, no one will be motivated to do anything. We'll all just loll around , (if they're people like me) staring at our navel disinterested in the world (if they're people like me) ....We'll be like Old Sick Europe . Then where will ALL of science be? Do you think people are motivated by the mere chance to relieve human suffering ? Do my whores fuck me because they love me???? We need REAL motivation !!!!!
What's your value system here? Is science for the betterment of mankind , to save human lives and advance the general welfare of people or is its primary purpose to make money for people with money so they'll go on doing science ?
COIMMUNIST! I SMELL A COMMUNIST!!!!
If the IP system is pared back, then all progress will cease.
They have to keep on engineering virus so they can kill more people. Then there is their vaccine scam. “Up to 90% of the total decline in the death rate of children between 1860-1965 because of whooping cough, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and measles occurred before the introduction of immunisations and antibiotics.” Dr. Archie Kalokerinos, M.D. PhD. It was the new sanitation, clean water, better food that stopped childhood diseases, not vaccinations. Vaccinations are a plot to make people sick.
In the western world we tend to perceive corruption as simple bribery. In my opinion, this thinking is way to narrow - but it keeps us in a kind of comfort zone, that in western world we have much less corruption than anywhere else. BUT if we add regulatory capture and start measuring corruption (simple bribery plus regulatory capture) in terms of human costs, world starts to look totally different. Broken intellectual property law - in this case hindering efforts to fight off a (potentially) deadly virus - is one of many examples of this. I'd rather call it legalized corruption than involve in debating rights and wrongs of this particular (narrow) issue. The same with patented cancer genes, software patents, financial institutions being out of control, monsanto force-feeding us with their toxic crap, legalized tax evasion etc. All those things are legal! Yet until we won't recognize this as ("legalized") corruption, these things won't be solved as root cause of all of this (regulatory capture) will still be there. It will cost us money, health and ultimately lives until we recognize that western countries - especially US - are propably the most corrupt ones in the world just because of sheer scale of this "legalized" corruption and its effects in terms of human costs. If you include all those banana republics we (western countries) imposed corrupt broken regimes just to steal their wealth, the whole picture looks even more grim. Stop debating rights and wrongs of narrow issues - it plays well to the hand of our corrupt corporate overlords. Get up and start fighting corruption in all its forms, including "legalized" one.
They own it? Then they should have it, in their blood. Then we could discuss if we want to cure them or not, after all, we don't want to harm their intellectual property.
Once again another fear mongering story without any merit. No where in any of this
is there actually a single reference to a single IP, person, or company that is
interfering with research.
This is just another bit of propaganda to persuade readers to attack corporations
as evil.
If I own a bull, and this bull gets loose in a china shop, I'm liable. Why should intellectual property be any different?
If you own a gene, and a virus is using that gene to kill people, well, it's your duty to stop that virus doing what it's doing, and if you don't, expect to pay damages!
(But somehow I don't think the champions of intellectual property want the property metaphor to extend that far.)
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Then I think they should be charged with 22 cases of murder. It might not be murder 1, but manslaughter.
If you want to 'own' this virus, you get to 'own' the consequences. Corporations are people. Some places have the death penalty for people who commit crimes.
Sounds like another issue of national security to me. So they could just take it away if it isn't offered.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
makes no mention of a specific patent. Also, the people complaining were in Saudi Arabia -- a country in which most companies NEVER get patents.
Of course, it would be slashdot if we didn't have our daily patent scare article.
It's getting ridiculous, ....
Gas is slang and short for Gasoline, that stuff you might fill up your car with. Petrol is also slang for Gasoline but is short for Petroleum which makes it ambiguous as to whether you are speaking of Crude Oil or any other refined fuels.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
Origin:
Middle English (denoting a solid wooden wheel): perhaps short for truckle1 in the sense 'wheel, pulley'. The sense 'wheeled vehicle' dates from the late 18th century
The government can't take property (including intellectual property) pursuant to the TAKINGS clause of the US Constitution without paying just compensation.
The government can take property (including intellectual property) pursuant to the POLICE POWER clause of the US Constitution without paying just compensation.
If the public need for an antivirus is strong enough, I say pass police power legislation relating to the public health that frees up the scientific field of research.
If pharmaceutical companies are going to behave like pigs at the trough, then screw them.
http://wh.gov/hrbB
Let's turn our swords into plowshares and grab all those patents for the public domain.
I knew when Microsoft and Novel signed that patent cross-licensing deal they were up to no good! Who knew they were working on a Novel virus?
They are murderers.
Hey, if you can equate copyright infringement to theft, you can draw the same comparison between willfully withholding information and murder.
Just use a non-significant portion, or use it to treat porn industry-related diseases in order to claim parody.
This is why patent laws should be reformed to specify that a patent applies to something that was invented/created by a person(s) or company, not discovered.
'SARS' the 'deadly' virus, that amounted to not very much. 'SARS' that was actually caused by idiotic orientals building blocks of apartments with sewage pipes INSIDE the rooms, going down from the top of the building to the bottom - how disgusting is that?
'SARS' the 'deadly' virus that was going to kill hundreds of thousands, but was in fact just conventional pneumonia, renamed so that the sickeningly corrupt drug companies could make billions by selling 'cures' to a disease that affected HARDLY ANYBODY.
The novel coronoavirus are deadly, we know that
What we did not know --- and thanks to the IP-scandal, now we know --- is how deadly the lawyers are
The outbreak of this novel coronavirus is at least (so far) somewhat contained --- what I am afraid is, and what all others should too, is that, next time, when there is an outbreak of a far more virulent virus, which spread very fast worldwide, will the world still allowing these deadly lawyers ram their law books into the medical research labs ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I must be missing something, as it has been a while since I've attempted to read the MPEP, but...when did we start patenting viruses? Last I checked, biotechnology patents related to genes were limited to patents on implementations on finding a gene...
I am John Hurt.
So can anyone actually tell me what the actual IP problem is here? That is, who precisely is making claims that are preventing needed research, and what is the nature of those claims? The BBC article linked in the summary is notably weak on these details, so it's hard to judge the true seriousness of the problem, if problem there be.
Thats wicked. Evil. What is the company that digs this grave?
Youtube recently made a backroom deal with Nintendo to confiscate Let's Players revenue and limit their video for any Nintendo products to 10 minutes.
I posted a friendly comment defending copyright but criticizing Nintendo for its move.
Youtube has the right to censor their private service. But they do not have the right to brainwash America's youth over any and all political speach that does not serve their Corporate overlords. They are supporting themselves off of people with no income. Children. People unable to become politically informed and active.
These people are being funded by the T.V. ads, the internet ads we willingly watch. I highly recommend deleting all associated accounts and boycotting there service. If you have a favorite forum please explain to the users there why they need to boycott youtube.
--Definitely not APK, just someone else who is pissed at this bullshit. Start thinking about how to spread the word and stop these people from making single buck.
If you claim "ownership" over a disease you had better be Pestilence of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse...
how about sueing the company which claim to have ip about the virus, as they claim it's theirs, so they are therefor responsible for it, which makes them liable for any result the virus brings....