Yes - they can own your whole body!
on
New Patent Treaty
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· Score: 1
Yes it does. Not only that, but companies can use patent genes, proteins and other compounds derived from your own body.
I remember a recent case of a guy in the US who appeared to be immune to a rather common disease. A biotech company purchased his blood samples from the doc who reported the case, cloned the antibodies, patented them and made millions and millions of $.
When the guy found out he sued for invasion of privacy and damages. He lost.
Every time I worked salaried in the US I got screwed. The companies piled on the workload until we were pushing 80 hours per week average. This happened at three different places in and around Silicon Valley and San Francisco. Compared to contract work the salaries and bonuses were a friggin' joke!
The first year I went contract my hours were nearly halved, my salaried more than doubled, and I was able to pick and choose from a variety of interesting projects. Quite a nice change.
Patents made by 'ideas' from machines are about as reasonable as patenting genes from the human body (which have existed for millions of years and weren't 'invented' by anyone) or patenting software techniques (i.e. patents for 'selling over the web', etc.).
The U.S. PTO has been driven to the ridiculous by unrepentent greed in the private sector and a complete absence of guidance by our politicians and courts. Blecchh, retch!
I think the end result will be that many countries around the world will begin to simply ignore the more ridiculous U.S. patents. This will, in turn, lead to a general weakening of the global patchwork of laws that protect intellectual property, heightening tensions and fostering trade disputes and protectionist tendencies.
If I develop something and want it to be freely available and usable in source form for any free projects, but licen$able for any commercial projects, which license (other than my own) model is available for this? Troll Tech's QT, or Sun's "Community" license perhaps?
And what are the ramifications if some of my sources are based on GPL or BSD licensed code?
I would love to develop code for free always, anytime, anywhere, but I don't have that luxury. My kids need food and clothes, my banker needs his house payments, my wife needs her credit cards, and I - unfortunately - need to earn $. The result is that I generally only have time to develop code I get paid for. I'm sure others are in a similar situation. What is the best solution that promotes and supports the Open Source community and still helps us developers improve our bank account balances?
Despite being a Linux enthusiast, most of my customers demand Windows NT versions of nearly everything I write. Cygwin has been invaluable in allowing me to write high quality *nix software and provide a running version on NT (relatively painlessly).
I'm most interested in Red Hat's continued support for these Cygnus projects.
Metcalf is a cornucopia of right-wing, half-baked ideas. As I understand it, he basically bought Infoworld so he would have a forum more substantial than the three martini, has-beens coctail circuit on which to air them.
Giving bozos like this a blurb on Slashdot is like trying to argue the color of air. It is, in a word, pointless. Let's spend our energy on better things.
Telomeres are DNA repeats at the end of our chromosomes. All creatures seem to have them. Their function seems to be to control how often a cell can replicate.
When chromosomes replicate, the DNA strands split down the middle and an enzyme reads the DNA and produces a copy very similar to how a tape recorder plays an audio tape. The problem with this replicating enzyme is that it needs to hold onto something as it starts reading. This little bit of DNA it holds onto is not copied. This results in a loss of about 6 DNA base pairs per copy (ie. per cell relpication) of the telomere in humans. After a certain number of replications, the telomere is used up and the 6 base pair loss starts eating into important genetic material. Eventually the cell stops replicating and becomes 'senescent'.
Telomerase is an enzyme who can replace these lost base pairs after replication. In humans it is found mainly in germ line cells (sperm and egg cells), bone marrow (makes red blood cells), and - drum roll - cancer cells. This seems to explain why cancer cells are immortal and our normal cells are not.
Two exciting ideas (among many) have emerged from telomere research. The first is that if an 'anti' telomerase can be found, it will be a cure for many, many kinds of cancer. The second is that if we can introduce telomerase into our normal cells, we will live much, much longer.
The company doing the most research into this is a quiet, odd firm started by an American tycoon called Geron Corporation. You can surf them at http://www.geron.com. Geron recently revealed that introducing telomerase into normal humans cells seems to make them immortal.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes it does. Not only that, but companies can use patent genes, proteins and other compounds derived from your own body.
I remember a recent case of a guy in the US who appeared to be immune to a rather common disease. A biotech company purchased his blood samples from the doc who reported the case, cloned the antibodies, patented them and made millions and millions of $.
When the guy found out he sued for invasion of privacy and damages. He lost.
Every time I worked salaried in the US I got screwed. The companies piled on the workload until we were pushing 80 hours per week average. This happened at three different places in and around Silicon Valley and San Francisco. Compared to contract work the salaries and bonuses were a friggin' joke!
The first year I went contract my hours were nearly halved, my salaried more than doubled, and I was able to pick and choose from a variety of interesting projects. Quite a nice change.
Generally you have one year to file all your foreign patents after filing with the PTO. (Note I said 'filing' - not the date your patent is granted.)
In the EU, you must seek a seperate patent and must designate each country you want patent protection in and pay all requisite fees required.
Taiwan and China are a seperate ball game and must be obtained seperately.
All of this information came from the book "Patent it Yourself" by David Pressman which is available at Amazon.
Patents made by 'ideas' from machines are about as reasonable as patenting genes from the human body (which have existed for millions of years and weren't 'invented' by anyone) or patenting software techniques (i.e. patents for 'selling over the web', etc.).
The U.S. PTO has been driven to the ridiculous by unrepentent greed in the private sector and a complete absence of guidance by our politicians and courts. Blecchh, retch!
I think the end result will be that many countries around the world will begin to simply ignore the more ridiculous U.S. patents. This will, in turn, lead to a general weakening of the global patchwork of laws that protect intellectual property, heightening tensions and fostering trade disputes and protectionist tendencies.
Way to go guys...
Here's another interesting licensing dilemma -
If I develop something and want it to be freely available and usable in source form for any free projects, but licen$able for any commercial projects, which license (other than my own) model is available for this? Troll Tech's QT, or Sun's "Community" license perhaps?
And what are the ramifications if some of my sources are based on GPL or BSD licensed code?
I would love to develop code for free always, anytime, anywhere, but I don't have that luxury. My kids need food and clothes, my banker needs his house payments, my wife needs her credit cards, and I - unfortunately - need to earn $. The result is that I generally only have time to develop code I get paid for. I'm sure others are in a similar situation. What is the best solution that promotes and supports the Open Source community and still helps us developers improve our bank account balances?
A geek is someone who works with computers.
A nerd is someone who enjoys it.
Despite being a Linux enthusiast, most of my customers demand Windows NT versions of nearly everything I write. Cygwin has been invaluable in allowing me to write high quality *nix software and provide a running version on NT (relatively painlessly).
I'm most interested in Red Hat's continued support for these Cygnus projects.
Metcalf is a cornucopia of right-wing, half-baked ideas. As I understand it, he basically bought Infoworld so he would have a forum more substantial than the three martini, has-beens coctail circuit on which to air them.
Giving bozos like this a blurb on Slashdot is like trying to argue the color of air. It is, in a word, pointless. Let's spend our energy on better things.
Telomeres are DNA repeats at the end of our chromosomes. All creatures seem to have them. Their function seems to be to control how often a cell can replicate.
When chromosomes replicate, the DNA strands split down the middle and an enzyme reads the DNA and produces a copy very similar to how a tape recorder plays an audio tape. The problem with this replicating enzyme is that it needs to hold onto something as it starts reading. This little bit of DNA it holds onto is not copied. This results in a loss of about 6 DNA base pairs per copy (ie. per cell relpication) of the telomere in humans. After a certain number of replications, the telomere is used up and the 6 base pair loss starts eating into important genetic material. Eventually the cell stops replicating and becomes 'senescent'.
Telomerase is an enzyme who can replace these lost base pairs after replication. In humans it is found mainly in germ line cells (sperm and egg cells), bone marrow (makes red blood cells), and - drum roll - cancer cells. This seems to explain why cancer cells are immortal and our normal cells are not.
Two exciting ideas (among many) have emerged from telomere research. The first is that if an 'anti' telomerase can be found, it will be a cure for many, many kinds of cancer. The second is that if we can introduce telomerase into our normal cells, we will live much, much longer.
The company doing the most research into this is a quiet, odd firm started by an American tycoon called Geron Corporation. You can surf them at http://www.geron.com. Geron recently revealed that introducing telomerase into normal humans cells seems to make them immortal.
Exciting stuff.