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Judge Finds Major DNA Patent Invalid
cswiii writes "In what some Slashdot readers might consider a breath of fresh air, a judge in San Francisco ruled that a patent on DNA replication and analysis was questionably obtained and thus, invalid. An appeal has already been promised by the defendants. " Whew. There's some form of sanity left in the world I guess. Reversing the Taq DNA Polyemerase patent is a pretty major deal for genetic research - it makes PCR much easier to perform.
Well, I have nothing against patents of processes to do with DNA. I think that if somebody came up with a creative idea of solving a technical difficulty in dealing with DNA, there's nothing wrong with him patenting it. But what is problematic is if he tries patenting stuff to do with the DNA itself -- eg., patenting a particular DNA sequence that he found that others haven't found yet. It's patents like that that are scary, because ultimately it boils down to a group of people controlling the use of something which is found in nature.
But of course, the other extreme can go wrong too, in fact, very wrong. The main problem being that in a leading-edge technology like this, techniques that are "obvious" to whoever is in the field may not be obvious at all to whoever is working in the patent office. Then somebody could just go and patent something that looks innovative and creative but which can easily be found by whoever's in the field if they worked at it. This could be the source of silly patents and "obvious" patents which lets companies or a few individuals "control" an obvious technique and leech money off everybody else in the field for using it or "re-discovering" it.
mikre he sophia he tou Mikrosophou.
They abbreviated it at PRC in the article too which is wierd. I would have expected a source like this to have gotten a simple abbreviation like this correct.
Slightly more on topic now...
It wasn't mentioned in the article, but Taq polymerase is a naturally occuring enzyme, which I would not expect to be patentable. However, many biotech companies have introduced modified Taq enzymes (eg that are less error prone, more efficient, etc) which I would expect to be patentable. The article does not mention if they were attempting to patent the naturally occuring or a modified form of the enzyme.
Mike
NERD!$@#$^&#*$
ALSO, CHANGE IT TO, "Hello, cow! I'm Natalie Portman! Let's have sex!"
THANKS
-cow
I've seen several people write (and it makes sense) that the recent influx of trolls was caused mainly by segfault.org's decision to not allow comments on its stories. The Natalie Portman stuff was supposedly a running joke on that site. (I hardly visit it, so I can't really confirm.)
The signal to noise ratio is rapidly approaching 1:1 in some of the topics already.
just to be correct; it's PCR not PRC ;)
Polymerase Chain Reaction
not the People's Republic of China
sorry.
I think what did it was really "MY VIRGIN SISTER'S SHAVED PUSSY". That was probably the most particularly offensive write-in.
Personally, I don't know why people found it so offensive. I screw my Virgin Sister daily and she quite enjoys it. She's a ward sister working in a hospital owned by Richard Branson's Virgin Hospitals, and she likes nothing more than drinking my cum.
What happened is the company with the patent liceensed it to a different company and aparently didn't deliver on the IP. The other company had a bit of a problem being overcharged and went to court. Now that the patent is gone, I expect they will ask for their $400 mil back.
Note to US Voters that may be reading this: One of the big names in the PMRC back in the music labelling/censorship debate in the 80's was Tipper Gore, the wife of presidential candidate Al Gore (Mark I). She's one of those "Senators' Wives" who decided that they needed something to do, and became busybodies. Do you want this person living in the White House?
-- $SIGNATURE
If it's the case, take the tripe somewhere else- it's not anymore welcome here than it's welcome on (AB)USENET.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
The new "mix" you refer to was the discovery of Taq DNA polymerase. DNA polymerase is found in every living cell, and it serves to synthesize DNA from individual nucleotides (A,T,C,G). Hence, it is essential to PCR, which is basically just the repeated copying/synthesis of a DNA fragment.
The original DNA polymerase used in PCR was not thermostable, meaning that it couldn't withstand high temperatures. Each PCR cycle requires a high-temperature step to separate the DNA strands, hence, early PCRs required the addition of new polymerase during each cycle. This was labor intensive and impractical.
Taq DNA polymerase is extracted from thermus aquaticus, a bacteria originally found in thermal vents in Yellowstone. Because this bacteria lived in such incredibly hot conditions, its DNA polymerase was thermostable. Taq polymerase is still used today in the vast majority of the world's PCR reactions.
Sooooo...the patent that you refer to was indeed the really evil insidious stupid kind of patent that we all despise--the patenting of discovered genes. I say good riddance to this patent. May the USPTO realize the error of its ways...
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
Anyway, when Tipper Gore's in the White House, I'll install a hidden camera in her bedroom and watch her undressing on the internet. Anyone else will have to subscribe to my celebrity hidden camera website. The Secret Service are my friends.
I can confirm you that: I've been on segfault only once, I remember having seen for the first time the whole stuff and been thinking: "I wonder what kind of geek moron can have fantasms with geisha queen amidalia?". I am sad to say that it doesn't surprise me anymore, even if I still do not understand it.
I guess what we need is more moderators, or a special anti-spam system, else we poor Anonymous Cowards will be destroyed by the spam. (I'm sure plenty of people do not look at 0-moderated posts anymore)
COWS ARE RETARDED
THATS WHY WE EAT THEM
JUST LIKE WE EAT RETARDED BABIE
COWS ARE NO RETARDED YOU BUTTNUT
FUCKING RUSSIANS!
-cow
hi, my name is fat-time charlie. you may remember me from such posts as open source jbuilder, open source sci fi, andopen source wrist pain ii.
tonight, i am here to stress the importance of genetically engineering lubricating midgets with tourette's syndrome. lubricating midgets with tourette's syndrome have enriched my life in ways i cannot begin to relate.
there's nothing like wearing a good pair of fuzzy yellow chicken feet and being lubricated by a lubricating midget with tourette's syndrome on a cold winter's night.
please support your local open source lubricating midget with tourette's syndrome genetic engineering foundation.
the rewards will be handsome for all of us.
thank you.
this announcement sponsored by the copyrighted open source natalie portman and open source drew barrymore project.
No... as other people mentioned, its the correct time. You see, if it said 6:24 EDT, which stands for Eastern Daylight (savings) Time.... then it would be incorrect... but this says 6:24 EST, Eastern Standard Time, which is an hour behind EDT... (the old phase... spring ahead, fall back.) So, next time make sure you check the Timezone. If you really want more information... goto California's Department of Energy's website on Daylight savings...
I guess this just shows the loose, lax way the patent office handles its stuff, which is sad, letting many absurd patents go through. I'm not saying the people who work there are lazy or anything, but surely they should pay more attention to carefully verifying the patent for originality, contribution, and elibility for patenting?! It's a shame that they keep letting such patents fall through. No wonder people can abuse the patent system so easily, like the one-click shopping stupidity. (Gimme a break, clicking the mouse to shop online is such an original idea is it not?! But anyway, I digress...)
mikre he sophia he tou Mikrosophou.
While this patent is quite probably illegitimate because of the method it was obtained, it is also quite clearly NOT a patent of genetic material, i.e. it is not a DNA patent as per the article headline.
Regardless of what you think about the legitimacy of patenting of genetic codes, this has to do with processes and other technologies used to analyze and fabricate DNA, and nothing to do with the actual makeup of the codes.
In addition the article makes the error of claiming that this will make DNA research easier. Quite incorrect. Patent laws ALREADY exempt research activities from any patent infringement claims.
For some basic information on patent laws, this page is useful.
well, i think this case was related to the first use of taq polymerase in PCR, performed by kerry mullis (sp?). since then, many advances have been made in this procedures, and the corresponding new polymerases probably have gone through the patent process as well. one of the advances is not man-made but another bacterial enzymes (like taq, not from normal bacteria, but from archaebacteria) that have the ability to check back over the code and look for mistakes. since these enzymes are also from bacteria, they probably cannot be patented either.
Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and speech only to conceal their thoughts. -- Voltaire
If Arkansas is pronounced Ark'n'saw, then Kansas is surely pronounced Kn'saw.
You americans with your simplified spellings (like "color" instead of colour) can't even say stuff right.
As well as saying everything's "cute".
You americans R all my bitches.
-bitchfucker
Kary Mullis got some compensation - a rather large bonus from Cetus and a Nobel Prize. But no royalities from the patent. In interviews he's said that the powers that be at Cetus originally thought he was wasting his time on PCR, and he that he feels shafted by them. I'm not sure how much he had to do with Taq though - he left a few years before the Taq patent was applied for. (The original PCR process did not involve Taq.)
And just becasue Promega has a patent on Taq polymerase, it doesn't mean you can't make your own. My lab has a freezer full of Taq that we made. It's pretty simple - clone the gene, express it in E. Coli, purify the proteins, heat-kill the unwanted proteins, and viola - hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Taq. As far as I know, as long as we don't try to sell it, this is perfectly legal.
Who is Nat Portman?
I love this phrasing! It applies to almost all software patents in existance today.
Too bad the `falsely claiming advances' argument would have to be used to invalidate each software patent one-by-one, instead of en-masse, as they deserve to be.
It's like a DoS attack, anyone who posted after the BUNG holes will likely never get read.
/. as we know it
I wonder if this is the end of
Probably, or at least the end of AC posting. After this Rob will (at the request of Andover) shut down ACs. About a week after that, he'll have to start revoking accounts (starting with grits boy).
Either that, or start having REAL moderation.
0 1 - just my two bits
It seems like the recent comments on patents are mostly made by selfish individuals who don't understand the financial consequences behind research. Hopefully I can set the record straight.
/.ers to have all software released for free. Why should a company spend time and money developing software only to give it away for free?
Companies, whether large or small, simply cannot afford to fund research without at least some assurance that profit will be made. This typically comes by selling products/services based on ideas that come from that research. However, the company has spent large sums of money generating these new products and services, and needs to protect its investment to keep competitors from stealing their research. This is why companies patent ideas found in their research.
It's selfish and downright rediculous to expect companies to simply donate their research to the public domain. This removes all incentive for the corporation to conduct the research. This is akin to the desire often expressed by
The fact is, patents are a necessary evil. It gives business a reason to pursue research, since it is clear that universities and other government funded institutions (like the military and especially NASA) don't have enough money to do it themselves. Patents ensure that technology moves on.
(Note that this doesn't mean that I support the idea of patenting genes. I think that the idea of having corporations own the very makeup of all human beings proposterous. Unfortunately, I do not have an answer to the obvious question that arises: without the possibility of patens, how do you encourage companies to conduct research?)
Yeah, you're right. I meant he didn't got a lot of money, but I think he did actually got some. The Nobel prize was in 1993.
As for the patent, his name wasn't in the article and the process is a little too straightforward to be invalidated by technical arguments like that. It was new, it worked, it wasn't obvious, we knew for sure who invented it. There's not much space for invalidation there.
Now for a judge to find the "one-click" shopping really isn't that special or most computer patents not relating to hardware. Get UserID from a cookie, query database, place order, is the next step not anything to write home to mom about or get a patent.
linux = good gpl = good ipo = good natalie portman = great clinton = what the f***?
> As far as I know, as long as we don't try to sell it, this is perfectly legal.
Um, no. Patents apply to anyone who "makes, uses, or sells". So they could still sue if they liked.
Yeah, it sucks.
In a nutshell, the process allows a small piece of DNA which was cut out of the genome to be amplified (replicated) repeatedly a few million times. This allows genetecists to examine the piece of DNA on a large scale, therby eliminating a lot of expensive equipment. By staggering the enzymes which are cutting the piece out, the genetic code can be read out directly for a lot of bases at once.
While I believe that patenting of DNA sequences is something we have to come to grips with (and hopefully outlaw), this patent definitely does not fall into that category. If anything, this is a really really elegant hack which allows DNA to be examined by making lots of copies quickly and cheaply. This makes it possible for anyone to do the research. Essentially they are trying to open up the sequencing by coming up with an ingenius technique.
I also really take offense to people who cheer or boo this decision without taking a look at content and only look at the subject heading! Read something carefully before spouting off an opinion and maybe you'll actually make sense.
It's funny because it's true -- Homer J.
While this is great there decision wasn't one of "prior art" as much as it was:
U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker on Tuesday upheld a challenge by
Promega Corp., which argued that scientists got the important patent in
1990 by misrepresenting their experiments and falsely claiming advances
over previous discoveries.
So it sounds to me like it was more for scientific technical reasons. It also sounds like there is another company that could come forward and gets patents like this one. What do you guys think? Same interpretation?
If it is the way I think it is, there really hasn't been any breakthrough...
I am going to patent thinking... you can no longer think about thinking... wait, you cant think about that either...
Mark Duell
The "idiotic" rate at which biotech companies are applying for patents is hardly such; these companies are just defending their interests as best they can
I wasn't referring to legitimate biotech inventions (like medicines, engineered bacteria or non-obvious chemical processes) -- those are certainly worth the same as any other invention, and have a lot of expensive research behind them. That's why I said I'm at least relieved that this patent was a PROCESS.
I was referring to the dubious and genric genome patents (that you talked about as well), and (in general) the patenting of naturally occuring substances. It just seems ridiculous to claim them as original works...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
If u want an actress, take Natalie Portman. If u want a horny gal, take Denise Richards. If u want both, take Sophie Marceau. 007 owns you!
Biotechnology
Ain't what's so bad.
Like all technology
It's in da wrong hands.
Biotech
Biotech
Biotech
IS GODZILLA!
He wanted to get rid of a stupid Nat Portman post...
Now we've got a half dozen of them!
Thank you nice moderator... Thou have acted wisely...
BURN CHEZYNIA BUR^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H
ER
BURN HOLLYWOOD BURN
I SMELL A RIOT GOIN ON
FIRST THE VA IN NC
THEN THE COREL IN BC
UH YEAH
No.
No, I don't believe that's true.
Because you are a fucking cockmonkey.
Fuck you, you goddamn cockmonkey.
-cow
FUCK YOU WINDOZE USER
THE ONLY BITCH I AM IS TO THE MIGHTY QNX
YEAH!$!@$@%^@*^#qw&^(
-cow
Even if it is only because they misrepresented thier findings when they applied for the patent, it gives me confidence that stupid patents that are issued (One-click shopping comes to mind) can be overturned.
I'd just like to comment on what I think is ignorance about geneomics. You have an idea for an invention, you spend tonnes of time an money developing it and you make something, and sell it to make a profit so that you can pay back all your staff so they can buy food and healthcare and all those wonderful things. It would really be unfair for anyone else to step in the middle, copy you work and claim it as theirs and make a profit when you did all the development, that's why a patent makes sense. You spend a tonne of mony researching a particular nucleic acid sequence, beg for funding from rich people and eventulay you have something that you can make some money off of because you've proven it to be safe and beneficial, and you patent your invention (yes it is an invention, even with natural sequences it requires a lot of work in order to determine what they do, you should really have patent rights if you discover the function/purpose of things so complex). Someone could copy your sequence with a pen and paper and claim it as theirs when you've given your sweat and blood finding it; it makes sense to patent such things becuase like all things, they cost time effort and money, those investments have to be so people can make a living just like any other product.
Cringe all you like, open your eyes when your finished. Exponential evolution in progress, Pal.
Assembly language...deoxyribonucleic acid
semantics
On Sept. 13, 1999 the Moon as you know it was replaced by a hologram and artificial gravity for planet earth was turned
that's almost haiku
oh anonymous coward
you are talented
Do we really want to let these people play with DNA ? BTW, I live near alcyon Lake.
You can see the actual ruling on this case at http://www.promega.com/taqlegal/991207/991207order .pdf in pdf format. What apparently happened was that some journal articles were published in 1976 and 1980 which characterized the enzyme Thermophile AQuaticus (TAQ) polymerase, which is at the heart of PCR. Apparently, the folks at Cetus found a "different" polymerase, or at least they thought so. It turns out that the "difference" was experimental error, and that TAQ polymerase was already known and characterized in the open literature, THUS, its application to DNA amplification was covered, or "anticipated". Then, according to the finding, Promega called Hoffmann-La Roche on this fact, and H-LR decided to ignore it. And it turns out, once again according to the finding, that the scientists involved give the appearance of trying to cover up this fact to save their a$$e$. (Now, that's a pretty strong claim!) It is clearly a reversal based on prior art, not some technicality, which is good news. Although, I do offer my condolences to Hoffmann-La Roche; a lot of hurtin' going on there. So, what you need to repeat this victory in the computer arena are copies of all the old DECUS material, and every other early computing group material, especially from Xerox, and then get Ralph Nader to do a class action suit against virtually all bogus "hi-tech" companies, listing every internet user as a plaintiff. Heck, all the CPM and apple groups probably had some sort of one-click apple networked transaction using hypercard going in the 80s. All you need is something that differs by only the protocol, and you've won (provided someone takes it to court). Now, I noticed that Hoffmann-La Roche might be in for some penalties in this case. I wonder if anyone knows what kind of penalties can be imposed? Can you really collect from a bunch of IPO's that are losing money? But allow me to expound (and expand) and get more to the point; the people who invented TAQ polymerase found a naturally occuring product and then found a use for it. Naturally occuring products don't come with any rules, so, this sort of invention really is an 'art' because it is 'artificially' imposed upon nature to accomplish some desired, but not neccesarily useful, thing. This is not the case with software combinations. The creators of un*x went to a lot of trouble so that commands could pipe into one another and be used in endless combinations. This same approach of interoperability was applied to TCP/IP and eventually to HTML. So, the inventors, by design, granted us the ability to connect all the commands on a system to one another. Thus, any combination of programs which are doing what their creators envisioned, and which are strung together with pipes and tees or shared memory is already covered by the inventions which went into the OS. To say that one specific set of commands should be pulled away from the public because some company thought of it first is ludicrous. It's like patenting a new end-game for chess. It's like patenting the use of a 1-4-5 chord progression to produce a "hip" attitude in a music recipient. (Am I preaching to the choir yet? :) There is no problem with getting copyrights to this stuff, it's done all the time. However, when you play within the rules set up by someone else, you can't patent your style of play. Can Michael Jordan patent a basketball move? No, he's playing by someone elses rules. But take image compression, as a counter example. If I develop a way to digitize a picture and then represent it with only 1/10000th of the original numbers representing digitized points, I have a) done something new and useful b) done something which doesn't require a computer. That's right!; long before computers, people were digitizing things and performing manual calculations on them, albeit small calculations. So, a patent should be granted in this because there were no rules and I created something by my art. Now, take your one-click shopping again. Linking databases via the internet all takes place within the rules set up by the originators of operating systems and internet protocols. What would this look like if the computers were eliminated. Well, it could be construed as someone looking through a catalog with one-phonecall shopping which links inventory and account legers and has automatic follow up phone calls to a shipping department and the customer. So, DONCHA SEE? This is nothing more than a mail order system with some book keeping, which has literally been around since cuneiform writing was developed by the ancient Sumerians. So, my $.03 is that if you can eliminate the computers and you still have a novel process which doesn't play by the rules, then you have a bona fide invention!
FUCK YOU QNX USER
THE ONLY BITCH I AM IS TO THE MIGHTY MACOS
OH MAN!$!^&*
MAC RULES... OF COURSE, MAC ONLY RULES WHEN I KNOW HOW TO FLY!
-cow
WE'VE ALREADY PROVED IN A PREVIOUS THREAD
COW IS A LIAR.
YOU AREN'T A COCKMONKEY. A COCK GOBBLER,
MAYBE BUT NOT A COCKMONKEY. THATS RESERVED
FOR THE EMPLOYEES OF LINUXCARE.
The patent wasn't on DNA, but rather on an enzyme that was synthesized by that company to better manipulate DNA. It's a chemical, but it's also a tool. I have the feeling that as nano-tech becomes more practical, this grey area will have to be dealt with. So here are some questions for you: :)
how simple does a machine have to get before you can't patent it?
Is a molecule patentable if it's totally synthesized?
For the future: will things like carbon nano-tubes be patentable?
The process of the PCR (that's the right abbreviation) is a very patentable process. It's a mix of using bacterial enzymes (which was what the patent was about) and putting it into a thermocycler (it simply raises and drops the temperature over and over) with the segment of DNA and primers and an hour later you have billions of copies of sequence you're interested in.
The idea of putting it all together is rather simple when you thing about it, but it's still a stroke of genius. That patent still holds if I remember well (but no money went to the inventor though). At the begininng, you had to put a new enzyme mix at each cycle because the heat would destroy it. If I understand it well, the patent in question was about another mix that can survive the temperature, so you put it once and forget about it. So THAT patent was more of using something that already exist in nature (and not a new process).
Processes like that are and should be patentable because they are still brilliant inventions with a human mechanical side and they're the ones that helps the science go advance so fast these days.
well, i placed out of freshman biology.....but i majored in microbiology. does that count??
and i worked in a dna sequencing lab for 2 years. you learn to hate PCR after a while......
Don't acknowledge or reply to the troll, you weiner. Then they'll go away. Hey, wait -- you're a troll!
Wrong company , NOT Hoffman-La Roche
THAT'S *FUNNY*!!!
Don't deny it, you are my bitch. Who do you think you are kidding? And my nipples are sexy, you cannot deny it. Look at my nipples! You are a gimpbitch. Fuck you, you gimpbitch. -master
The reason most biatch homies make crack is that a lot of their value is based on the ereet shit they are doing
If they make and do a good drug (or fucknut), this will increase their ereetness as it will give them an edge over their competition.
Some biatch homies have been even valued up on announcements of possible breakthrough ereeto methods or drugs.
Unfortunately for the cockmonkeys, too often these "possibilities" turn out to be caps in yo mutha fuckin ass.
-cow
FUCK YOU KEANU REAVES
Suck my balls, gimpbitch! -master
THAT'S BECAUSE YOU ARE THE COCKMONKEY!
-COW
HELLLLLLL YEAH!
-cow
QNX is for losers. Real coders use AmigaDOS. Bizayiyatch! -master
HUH
I HAVE A COCKMONKEY RIGHT HERE
I BELIEVE HE'S THE FUCKNUT WHO CALLED ME A LIAR!
YOU COCKMONKEY!
-cow
YEAH AND IT SUCKS LIKE ALL THE OTHER LINUX DISTRIBUTIONS!
-cow
Well, everything before "sweaty bollocks", anywayz
NATALIE PORTMAN WOULDN'T TOUCH YOUR BITCHFUCKIN' ASS WITH A 90 FOOT POLE, LITTLE MAN!
NP + DR = MY GIRLFRIENDS!
-cow
I WORK FOR MICROSOFT!
-cow
DAMNED RIGHT!
-cow
Doh, get it right!
Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR!!!!)
Claim 1: a system whereby hilarity and/or despair is brought to a large group of people through the broadcast of the details of granted patents.
Claim 2: a system as in Claim 1 whereby the details are provided in the form of a Uniform Resource Locator identifying the patent on an Internet accessible patent repository such as the IBM patent site.
Claim 3: a system as in Claim 1 and/or Claim 2 whereby the method of broadcast is an article on a popular portal site such as Slashdot.
Claim 4: a system as in Claims 1-3 whereby the patent applicants are obviously massively taking the piss.
US5443036: Method of exercising a cat
--
Xenu loves you!
"..., and sequencing the insert"
And how do you do that without PCR?
Lars
--
Reality or nothing.
PRC is the peple's republic of china. they are trying to infest your brain with communism subliminally.
thats mean
And just becasue Promega has a patent on Taq polymerase, it doesn't mean you can't make your own. My lab has a freezer full of Taq that we made. It's pretty simple - clone the gene, express it in E. Coli, purify the proteins, heat-kill the unwanted proteins, and viola - hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Taq. As far as I know, as long as we don't try to sell it, this is perfectly legal.
I'm fairly sure that this is incorrect, unless your lab or institution has a unique licensing agreement with Roche. Every unit of Taq comes with a limited license to use it for PCR in an "authorized thermocycler". Some companies (i.e. Visible Genetics) have been granted broader licenses for PCR. Perhaps your lab has this type of agreement? Or perhpas your lab has just been sticking it to The Man (Right on!). In either case, the patent has been invalidated so no harm, no foul.
One step closer to hacking the genome at home!
Some countries (including Ireland, where I am) have a statutory prohibition on the granting of software patents, patents on mathematical equations or derivations, patents on genes, or patents on agricultural or medical processes.
IMHO this is A Good Thing(TM), but something which such countries are under pressure to change in successsors to various international intellectual property treaties (such as the PCT) and the like via organisations like WIPO.
It does make "us" attractive locations for e-commerce. Pity about the bandwidth and the cost of it.
More details can be had by requesting the Irish Patent Office's Guide from
The Patent Office,
Merrion Square,
Dublin 2,
Ireland.
Regards,
Emmet.
emmet@_NO.SPAM_netrogen.com
(Too lazy to log in)
OK, #1: It's PCR, not PRC. I was willing to let it slide until the article made the same mistake twice.
/., since it really isn't a matter of freedom, stupid patents, etc.
/.er truly understands research and development, outside of the computer world. Although it's not convenient, any brilliant programmer with a thousand dollar computer can turn out code for the masses. It is entirely impossible to do any R&D in most other fields without many millions of dollars. A small (say 5 person) chemistry lab will require fume hoods, counterspace, flammable storage containers, analytical equipment (GC_MS, IR, and HPLC at a minimum) and miscellaneous equipment. That's about $300k before you even start buying chemicals for them! Ongoing costs are usually figured at $500-$1000 per person per day, not including salaries. This is a LOT of money, and that won't get them even close to cutting edge research!
I have no idea why this has been posted to
HLR had a patent. The judge said they got it under questionable (i.e. stolen?) circumstances. This is plain ol' low-key industrial espionage/competition, and goes on all the time. The article was not about whether the patent was morally valid, or whether we have a right to patent this stuff, etc. etc.
Taq Polymerase as a tool for improving PCR throughput is a simple, straightforward, clearly patentable concept. End of discussion.
Now as to whether patents are a valid idea at all, I say this: Go hang out at one of the major biotech centres (San Francisco or San Diego leap to mind) and take a good look at the money being spent by corporations on _research_. Then look at where that money is coming from. You'll find privately funded companies and publicly traded companies, both of which operate on the principle of a reasonable change of return on investment. If I had millions of dollars, how much of it would I give to a research group who promised to spend it all and give me nothing back but a warm fuzzy feeling? Some maybe (I'm a humanist), but not the billions that are spent on research every year in the US alone!
Face it gang. Patents (when properly applied) protect intellectual property, intellectual property leads to inventions which make money, and the promise of making money is how startup (research) money is drawn in. Without this system, I'd bet that R&D funding would be cut to about 5% of what it is now.
I have to wonder, though, if the average "burn the patent system!"
It's simple. R&D is funded on the patent system. Trash that, and you trash R&D.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
M IS FOR MAGGOT ... Uh. FUCK YOU KEANU REAVES.
A IS FOR ASS
S IS FOR SUCKING
T IS FOR TESTICLES
E IS FOR EVERY
R IS FOR
I actually wouldn't call the Taq polymerase a PROCESS. It is, in fact, a protein derived from a thermophilic bacteria which allows the PCR to proceed at the necessary temperatures. Therefore, I think that this really would constitute a genetic patent which has been overruled. The discovery of Taq is not much different than the discovery of a gene. That gives me hope. Especially if a place like the Bay Area begins this trend, with all that gene patents mean to the location.
Invicta{HOG}
i'm pretty sure kerry mullis did get some money from this...plus he won the nobel prize in chemistry for this discovery. i believe this is the actual patent that they are discussing (he worked with this company when he discovered it).
Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and speech only to conceal their thoughts. -- Voltaire
ITS A WELL KNOWN FACT THANKS TO THE DISCOVERY
CHANNEL THAT THE COCK MONKEY WENT EXTINCT OVER
3 MILLION YEARS AGO.
SO STOP LYING COCK GOBBLER.
Yah. He was a pretty funny guy. What you don't like him?
FUCK YOU
COCKMONKEY FIEND!#!$@
-cow
I run linux for quake III, it rocks. I got over 17 frags and 380 web hits per second on my dual pentium III 800!!!!!!
Yeah, you know you wuz just ripping off MegadetH: F is for fighting, R is for red, our ancestors blood in battles they shed. E we elect them, E we eject them, the land of the free and home of the brave. D is for dying, O your overture, M we will cover your graves with manure. This spells out FREEDOM, which means nothing for me, As long as there's a PMRC!!!
I am the mighty bitchfucker, and I own your ass, therefore I own all that is yours.
Anyway, NP was only there to give my bitch a good licking, which she did. It was so good, I forgot to watch the CNN documentary on how -cow is a turd.
After NP licked my bitch's nice tight shaved pussy, she came over and sucked my cock till I came in her mouth. As I was coming she took out my cock and let the cum go over her face and tits. She loved every minute of it and told me that -cow never gave her so much pleasure, and only -master came close, but nothing as good as
-bitchfucker
You know, checking out their investment? Maybe thinking, what a load of BUNG? I wonder if this is the end of /. as we know it... Kinda sad.
unfortunately, the patent was ruled against only because of impropriety in the application/description (representing that it was more significant a change than it was from previous knowledge).
The ruling I'd like very much to see is that genetic patents aren't enforcable/legitimate at all, due to the fact that they are merely discoveries.
Of course, this patent dealt with a specific PROCESS, not a true genetic patent, so I can at least understand why that could/should be protected.
Hopefully this will at least slow down the idiotic rate at which biotech patents are being applied for, as it tells the companies that sloppiness or misrepresentation in the application will invalidate the discovery. Since most of the genetic patents are being done through brute-force methods and applied for as fast as they can type the pages, this may inject a modicum of restraint...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
scientists got the important patent in 1990 by misrepresenting their experiments and falsely claiming advances over previous discoveries.
This is just business as usual for the judge. It wasn't exactly a ground-shattering decision like, oh say, that processes to do with DNA should be unpatentable. If it *was*, then I'd be applauding.
Still, one down, 9999 to go.
"Evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb." - Dark Helmet (Spaceballs)
BRING MENUDO THE FUCK BACK
no. if you don't want to read it, browse at a higher level, thats all. i love browsing at -1, because usually the moderators moderate all the really funny stuff down low.
It would be better if someone actually got round and decided that patenting DNA itself isn't reasonable or legal - it's not like this produces a precendent against other DNA patents. This doesn't sound even to be particularly tech-related, simply that the patent was obtained fraudulently...
Why don't they just declare the patent belonging to God - only then I guess they'd probably decide you had to pay the church royalties every time you wanted to use anything vaguely genetic.....
I am astounded by the level of ignorance that springs up whenever patents or biotech appears in Slashdot, and the noise level goes through the roof when they appear simultaneously.
I don't have enough time to address the fundamental misconceptions about patent law and biology, but I have to try to make one point:
Research in biology takes huge amounts of time, money and effort, and requires the exploration of (literally) millions of dead ends before something successful is finally discovered. Sure, it's easy once you know where to look, but the whole challenge in biology is the search.
You may not think Taq polymerase should be patentable because you see no inventive "eureka" moment associated with it,
but you have to realize that discovering and isolating a thermostable polymerase was a huge and expensive effort, the benefits of which have proved immense.
Serendipitous as the discovery of Taq itself was, it wasn't just "found".
Let me put it another way. Every one of you has two (essentially) complete haploid genomes in nearly every cell in your body. These genomes contain the keys for curing all known disease. Fat lot of good you're doing with 'em.
whuppy enjoys smelling like diesel fuel
I was hoping it would say that patents on DNA were illegal. But it didn't. It said these particular scientists used deception to try and patent something which they didn't invent.
:-)
In fact, this is evidence of a disaster.
The patent office obviously didn't do enough work to determine whether the proposed patent was credible--they just rubber stamped it, and left it for the courts to work out. Since the courts are incredibly expensive, that puts a challenge to a patent like this out of reach to the average person. It took a corporate adversary with a legal team to defeat it.
Not something that you and me and your favorite free software development team will benefit from. Well... maybe now that VA and Red Hat are worth a gazillion dollars we can finally get some of those lawyers fighting for the right team
Well said, Sir!
whuppy enjoys smelling like diesel fuel
You are incorrect. It will make research easier becasue TAQ will become cheaper. The patent that they hold has caused only their company, or those other companies who buy licenses from them, to sell TAQ for use in PCR. The prices are quite high because of this. Some labs have aquired their own clones of the gene for TAQ to produce their own polymerase. For ~$1,000 of supplies, you can produce ~$10,000,000 worth of TAQ polymerase. It's just a few days work.
Its probably your fault... If you live in a place that uses daylight savings time, you gotta tell it your timezone...
Mark Duell
Even if you want to argue that no mathematical discovery (or process to reach that discovery) should be patentable, do you want to claim the same for all manipulations and results of chemistry, as in the "discovery" of a new drug or antibacterial agent? And whether or not you want to, is it reasonable to assume someone would invest the huge sums of money, time, and human energy to come up with these if there could be no monetary benefit?
You don't want to put the legal system in charge of judging competing philosophies, do you? {-8
However, another tenet of the patent system is the "fair use" exclusion, in which basic researchers are allowed to use patented technologies without having to pay licensing fees.
The Roche PCR patent case involved the first US case in which a company sought to claim that basic researchers were infringing on the patent, and that the "fair use" exception did not apply. Details are available from the Promega web site.
This, more than anything, was the infuriating thing about the Roche patent. Basic researchers were literally threatened by this company, for not paying exorbitant fees on an enzyme that many of us can make for pennies. Roche even produced a ridiculous hit list of basic researchers who were "infringing", based on the Materials and Methods sections of papers written by those researchers.
It's a Good Thing that Promega won this case.
PCR was a neat idea. Probably worthy of a Nobel prize.
But, Mullis was not the first to think of using bacterial polymerase to amplify DNA. Furthermore, what [science] has done since then? Nothing.
A more objective account of the development of PCR may be found in Making PCR by hmm.. Forgot his name. He just wrote a book about Millenium, Inc and CEPH...
God pays me $500 for every brain He passes out.
Which should tell you something since I haven't made a dime in years......
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
NATALIE PORTMAN WROTE SLASHDOT
Is it time to end comments on Slashdot?
LIAR.
FUCK YOU
STUPID COCKMONKEY
-cow
Talk to the hand, biyatch.
You are a cockbiatch, you biyatchmonkey!
-master
P.S. Natalie Portman in still my bitch.
there are a few trolls here on /.
i think most of us just try to be funny, mostly. occassionally, maybe, mildly disruptive.
i think these long, repeating, distracting posts are going too far. even for me.
come on, guys, if you want to troll, then troll, but have some self-respect and at least mild consideration about it.
FUCK YOU STUPID COCKMONKEY
Now, is that "fuck you stupid cockmonkey" as in "free beer" or "free speech"?
That was the second post.
Even though you suck an ass for being fale (I have never been false), I must comment:
FIRST REPLY TO SECOND POST!
FRSP!
-cow
False.
-cow
just a technicality, but i'm sure you meant, PCR, polymerase chain reaction, and not PRC.
Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and speech only to conceal their thoughts. -- Voltaire
NATALIE PORTMAN HAS BIG FEET, YOU KNOW WHAT
THAT MEANS?
NATALIE PORTMAN WOULDN'T FIGHT
AFTER NATALIE PORTMAN AND I HAVE SEX, I WOULD HIRE AN ASSASSIN TO KILL THAT MOTHER FUCKER'S ASS!
-cow
Yes, the CNN story has it wrong... they've just been doing too many stories on China lately.
YOU CANT KILL MR T.
STOP LIVING IN A FUQIN FANTASY WORLD.
NO YOU ARE THE BIGGEST IDIOT OH MY GOD MR T WOULD NEVER WIN NATALIE PORTMAN HAS THE EMPIRE BEHIND HER SHES GOING TO VAPORIZE YOUR SORRY ASS AND MISTER TS BECAUSE YOU SUCK SUCK SUCK I SAY YOU CAN DIE BECAUSE YOU SUCK AND NATALIE KICKS ASS BECAUSE SHES MY BOYFRIEND ER I MEAN GIRLFRIEND AND SHE LIKS ME A LOT AND YOU SUCK SO SHES GOING TO VAPORIZE YOU WITH HER SPACE SHIUP
OK, I'm no CS major, so I usually keep quiet.
But, I tend to cringe whenever I read anything on slashdot about biology, e.g., cloning (not molecular cloning, btw), genomics, etc.
It's PCR, Polymerase Chain Reaction, not PRC, stupid. (btw, the article mentions the whole name, so any conscientious reader could've picked this up.)
So has anyone here passed freshman undergrad biology?
Two words : Time Zone. The slashdot clock is right on the money here.
Exponential evolution?
Yeah right.
HAART against HIV, anti-cancer drugs, anti-obseity drugs, etc. While we relieve the symptoms and extend life-span, we are merely resisting the selective forces of nature, accumulating "harmful genes".
Ever wonder what will happen to you if smallpox hit you? I doubt you're old enough to have had a vaccination. In any case, it won't be of any use after 20 years.
Let nature take its course.
Although the judge doesn't say it exactly, the way the defendants "falsely claiming advances over previous discoveries" was probably done by ignoring or fudging the prior art section of thier patent application. At least that seems to be the most obvious way to me.
Anyone know how/why this patent was dragged into court? under what circumstances?
Hopefully in the future we will see more patents over turned in court.
--
Simon
Melbourne, Australia
Vote 1 Australia for most backward IT policies of 1999.
Yep. Just like the AOL's and Prodigy's decision to allow NNTP access caused the Death of Usenet in 1994.
Whatever. As posters get stupider, software will just get smarter.
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
Last post?
:)
Yup, it's lame.
If it works in theory, try something else in practice.
I've seen a few people mention this, so I thought I'd clear it up.
The person who invented PCR is Kary Mullis. He's written a book, _Dancing Naked in the Mind Field_, in which he talks about a whole bunch of stuff, mostly related to science. Interestingly, he writes about how the people he worked for at the time when he invented it (Cetus) took the rights for the reaction away from him and compensated him with significantly less that he thought he deserved (and probably did deserve).
He also writes about hallucinogenic (sp?) drugs, poisonous spiders, current trends in pseudoscience, and a whole array of intersting topics. I'd reccomend this book to anyone who's ever read about science or had any thoughs on the subject. Yes, that means you. It's a great "mind opener."
It stands for the "Parental Music Religious Censors", or something.
Free cockmonkey.
-cow
It stands for the "Parental Music Religious Censors", or something.
It's PCR, polymerase chain reaction. I do PCR a lot and it works so well that it's almost magic.
SHE HAS BIG SHOES!
BUT REALLY.
SHE HAS PERFECT FEET.
NATALIE PORTMAN OWNS YOU. HOWEVER, SHE OWNS ME MOST BECAUSE SHE'S MY GIRLFRIEND.
-cow