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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.
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...
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.