The light sensor in my Powerbook isn't going nuts changing my screen brightness anymore. Maybe this issue has been fixed too. I'm not in fluorescent lighting to give it a good test though.
With the simple answer that you can do controls and see that it works. Transfect in GFP...Do the cells glow? Yes? It works. Plus it is a well known and accepted commercial method.
But you get that anyway in publications. Typically it only takes an email to get reagents and protocols from any other academic researcher. I agree, I get much better efficiencies using my own reagents than a Promega kit with CaPhos transfections.
The problem comes when a company spends lots of time making and optimizing (that is what takes the most time) a novel assay or technique that works really well. Would you really expect them to open up all their work?
It's one thing if the product is crap. Then it shouldn't sell anyway right?:)
I think you are confusing the IP in tech with how science actually works. Most people do not patent their findings. You release your results to the world in forms of journals. Scientists then take your results, along with your techniques and can test them to prove, disprove, or expand upon and reach their own conclusions which they then publish, etc.
The only times patents are used are when an actual product is produced. This can be a kit, a drug, a novel assay, whatever. The point is, that it was developed. This development (in science, at least) takes lots of time and money, and that is why patents exist. Something has to safeguard your time and money, otherwise there isn't a point to developing things in the first place.
You have to realize that while many people use software on a day to day basis, the people who use biochem kits and such are almost all able to make them themselves with little effort and knowledge of the composition. It's not the same as patenting an operator. Open sourcing kit composition is a way to destroy your company unless said kit is really complex (most aren't).
Typically for academic institutions, you publish all of your techniques including changes that you made to the protocol to get your results. This, and the willingness to share and explain your approach, is called good science.
The problem comes when you try to open up approaches done by commercial companies. Many of these companies spent years putting together the kits that they sell. Only the restrictive licensing and patents allow them to fully recoup their losses.
Take Amaxa for example. They supply an electroporation kit that works wonders for expressing constructs in cells. Unfortunately each kit costs $300 for 25 transfections. My lab typically goes through 3 of these every 2.5 weeks. Now if Amaxa would just tell us what the composition of the buffers are, that is all that I need to put together my own electroporation system and save my lab at least 15k a year! As a downside, Amaxa would cease to exist. What would be the point of having a biotech company that develops new techniques? Selling support? Please.
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The light sensor in my Powerbook isn't going nuts changing my screen brightness anymore. Maybe this issue has been fixed too. I'm not in fluorescent lighting to give it a good test though.
Hey has anyone else found that java apps stop working. I can't get Eclipse or FurtherNET to start.
Are any of you getting a segfault when running java from the Terminal?
Anyone have this problem and found a fix? I'm out of ideas.
Yes, there is a media exchange program. You just fill out a form and send $9 or something and they send you nice shiny CDs of Tiger.
With the simple answer that you can do controls and see that it works. Transfect in GFP...Do the cells glow? Yes? It works. Plus it is a well known and accepted commercial method.
But you get that anyway in publications. Typically it only takes an email to get reagents and protocols from any other academic researcher. I agree, I get much better efficiencies using my own reagents than a Promega kit with CaPhos transfections.
:)
The problem comes when a company spends lots of time making and optimizing (that is what takes the most time) a novel assay or technique that works really well. Would you really expect them to open up all their work?
It's one thing if the product is crap. Then it shouldn't sell anyway right?
The only times patents are used are when an actual product is produced. This can be a kit, a drug, a novel assay, whatever. The point is, that it was developed. This development (in science, at least) takes lots of time and money, and that is why patents exist. Something has to safeguard your time and money, otherwise there isn't a point to developing things in the first place.
You have to realize that while many people use software on a day to day basis, the people who use biochem kits and such are almost all able to make them themselves with little effort and knowledge of the composition. It's not the same as patenting an operator. Open sourcing kit composition is a way to destroy your company unless said kit is really complex (most aren't).
Typically for academic institutions, you publish all of your techniques including changes that you made to the protocol to get your results. This, and the willingness to share and explain your approach, is called good science.
The problem comes when you try to open up approaches done by commercial companies. Many of these companies spent years putting together the kits that they sell. Only the restrictive licensing and patents allow them to fully recoup their losses.
Take Amaxa for example. They supply an electroporation kit that works wonders for expressing constructs in cells. Unfortunately each kit costs $300 for 25 transfections. My lab typically goes through 3 of these every 2.5 weeks. Now if Amaxa would just tell us what the composition of the buffers are, that is all that I need to put together my own electroporation system and save my lab at least 15k a year! As a downside, Amaxa would cease to exist. What would be the point of having a biotech company that develops new techniques? Selling support? Please.