Wrong, UDP's are not lightly administered, @Home has refused to do anything about the problem, therefore the News admins have to do the next best thing. to use your own analogy the Gunmakers have done absolutley nothing to stop the guns falling into the wrong hands, even after baeing asked to do so repeatedly. The aim is not to hurt the regular users, it's to force @home to do something about the problem, once they do the UDP will be lifted.
"As far as I'm concerned, the only difference between genetic code and computer software (in this context) is that one program is run by biological mechanisms and the other by electronic ones."
There's a difference there, with software someone had to go to the trouble of thinking it up and writing the code, Genetic code is a natural occurance, these companies are just going to the trouble of finding it. An analogy would be an astronomer finding a new comet and then putting a patent on it. If a company comes up with a specific use of a particualr gene then maybe a patente might be justified, but only for that specific use, not a general one such as "use in treatment of cancer" more like "use in treatment of *foo* cancer by *bar* process".
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Wrong, UDP's are not lightly administered, @Home has refused to do anything about the problem, therefore the News admins have to do the next best thing. to use your own analogy the Gunmakers have done absolutley nothing to stop the guns falling into the wrong hands, even after baeing asked to do so repeatedly. The aim is not to hurt the regular users, it's to force @home to do something about the problem, once they do the UDP will be lifted.
"As far as I'm concerned, the only difference between genetic code and computer software (in this context) is that one program is run by biological mechanisms and the other by electronic ones."
There's a difference there, with software someone had to go to the trouble of thinking it up and writing the code, Genetic code is a natural occurance, these companies are just going to the trouble of finding it. An analogy would be an astronomer finding a new comet and then putting a patent on it. If a company comes up with a specific use of a particualr gene then maybe a patente might be justified, but only for that specific use, not a general one such as "use in treatment of cancer" more like "use in treatment of *foo* cancer by *bar* process".