"What Rosen (Heidi Rosen, RIAA head bitch) indicates that one would have to buy two copies of a CD in order to fairly loan one to someone else. Okay. Why isn't that fair use?"
How can you make that conclusion from Hatch's original question:
"Is it fair use to give the copy to my wife for her car?"
Hatch's quetion is whether or not it's fair use to copy a CD and give the copy away--not whether you can loan your original CD to someone--and frankly, I can't see why one *should* be allowed to copy a CD and give it away, regardless of the relation of the recipient.
Why in the world should copyright law allow us to copy a piece of intellectual property and then give that copy to a relative? Do we justify this by saying that "its fair use because the recipient of the copy is related to the copier"?
Translate the problem domain to the printed text world: Is it--or has it ever been--"fair use" to copy a book and give that copy away? If two people want to read said book at the same time, then two copies of the book should be purchased! If however, you're done with the book, and you want to give the book away, or resell the book, or loan the book out, you're allowed.
I got my Novice license way back when I was 13, and my General license not long after that. At the time, I was really interested in the long-distance communication that you could acheive with the lower bands (e.g. 10-80 meters), but I became disillusioned by what I heard once I got on the air--typically a bunch of crochety old guys debating politics, or talking about their rigs. Needless to say, I lost interest.
If I had the money and the space today, though, I'd want to get in the high-frequency side of Ham radio. Even in the 80s, projects like AMSAT we're pushing the boundaries of the discipline with microwave and satellite transmission. And then there's amateur television (SSTV, FSTV) and high-speed data transmission (Packet Radio), which have been around for a while, but infrequently used.
If you have the money and interest, I would highly recommend looking into the alternatives to the ragchew folks that dominate the lower bands. Don't forget that the most wonderful thing about Ham radio is the relative lack of restrictions that you face in using the bandwidth--you can experiment to your heart's content, and the FCC won't get on your back (esp. in the upper bands). You might have to get a more advanced license, but the effort is usually worth it in the amount you'll learn, and the amount of bandwidth access you gain.
It's odd to hear that *both* Celera and the HGP are announcing "completion" of the sequencing. Keep in mind that as recently as late last year, the HGP was loudly criticizing Celera for their reckless and largely PR-driven approach to human genome sequencing.
This could suggest a couple of things, IMHO:
1) Celera and the HGP have managed to reach some agreement on IP and the sharing of information between the two efforts, thus ending years of bickering, and providing a more complete map than either could accomplish alone (to date).
or
2) The HGP is racing (probably against the better judgement of its member scientists) to keep up with the steady flow of BS PR that comes out of Celera. For some reason (probably the cynic in me), I think this is the more likely case.
I've never been a fan of Celera--I've read their published data on the fruit fly genome (declared "substantially complete" BTW), and was amused to see coverage gaps big enough to drive a few hundred genes through. This concerns me a lot--once we allow corporate interests to drive science, will we see a degradation in the quality of basic research like this?
TAO is am extremely well-written, standards-compliant, open-source ORB that supports the entire 2.2 spec, and most of the 2.3 spec. I've been using this thing at work for the last 6 months or so, and I've been quite impressed. While it's not perfect, it has fewer gotchas than the commercial ORBs I've used. Did I mention that it's cross-platform, as well?
"A quote from their investor information: "To map all 80,000 human genes and find our SNPs, Celera is using Whole Genome Sequencing, a technique pioneered by several of Celera's scientists who were formerly at The Institute for Genomic Research. Using sound waves, a chromosome sample is dispersed into small DNA fragments that can be sequenced, then mapped back together based on their unique base-pair coding. In many cases, a 500-base-pair overlap at the end of a fragment is sufficient to determine that a particular piece of DNA belongs on a particular chromosome.""
Look at that--a perfect description of brute-force assembly of the human genome. I'm certainly glad you corrected me.
FYI, the technique used by CRA is called shotgun sequencing, and it has been debated before, but until recently was thought too resource intensive for use on very large genomes. For some information outside of CRAs investor's information page, you might try these:
Sequencing of H. Influenzae Science, July 28, 1995, V269, pp. 496-512
Shotgun Sequencing of the Human Genome Science, June 5, 1998, V280, pp. 1540-42
(Hmmmm...you'll have to excuse me...I tend to get my misinformation from referred journals rather than corporate websites...)
"In other words, there is a reason that they've been able to do it so fast. They are years ahead of the Human Genome Project."
You know what? You're exactly right--CRA *is* ahead of the HGP, and they are *fast*. That doesn't change the fact that they're using off-the-shelf machinery and publicly available algorithms to do a tedious, well-understood and largely mechanical job.
"Their entire business model is based on selling analysis of the information to drug companies. They already have several large firms signed to use them."
Uh-huh. Go back to CRAs investor's information page and find out how many CRA employees are doing the wet-lab biochemical analysis that will figure out what the genome really means. CRA has hired a few good computational biologists, but these will only get you so far in the world of molecular biology and biochemistry. The real analysis work has to be done by the hordes of laboratory researchers who actually utilize the kind of data were talking about.
So what will CRA do if they don't have lots of these types of researchers? Well, based on CRAs ambiguous business model, my guess is that they're going to package up their sequence data with references to public literature--a la LEXIS/NEXIS. In essence, a repackager of human genome data. I have absolutely no problem with this.
I do have a problem with the way CRA is taking a scorched-earth policy to patenting genes. *This* is the real reason that drug companies have signed up with CRA for early access--they're hoping to get their dirty little mitts on the hot genes in CRAs patent portfolio--and in the process, get an exclusive license agreement for the use of the same. CRA may only patent 300 or so of the thousands of genes they have preliminary patents on, but these 300 will have been carefully picked over by CRA and the drug companies so that no one else gets access to anything of serious value. Now, explain to me how this sort of behavior is supposed to encourage calculated risk and entrepreneurism in the biotech community?
"Why don't you read their investor statements before spouting off about which you know nothing."
"We are far better off letting the market be efficient, and letting companies like CRA and others do what they do best -- which is innovate in the area of genetics."
Are you related to Bill Gates? Because you sure spout the same story as Bill.
CRA hasn't "innovated in the area of genetics" any more than Microsoft has "innovated" in the area of "browsers." What CRA has done is thrown tons of money at a well-understood and largely mechanical problem, and as a result, has the resources to complete it faster.
You think CRA innovates? I've got news--they're using off-the-shelf machinery to do a brute-force assembly of the human genome. It's not magic, it's not a new idea, and it certainly isn't novel enough to patent the approach they're using (which, considering today's lax patent standards, is saying quite a bit). Its like saying we should give exclusive lawnmowing rights to one guy because he went out and bought the biggest damn lawnmower in the nation (after all, he spent the money, right?)
"We will get results far, far faster letting the free market do the work with normal economic incentives, rather than letting a bunch of government researchers take decades to do something with the information."
First off, CRA isn't *doing* squat with the sequence data they collect. They are neither equipped nor staffed to do the science that will determine the function of the genes that they sequence. What CRA *is* doing is what pundits call "prospecting the genome." I call it genome squatting.
If CRA were inventing drugs based on genome research, and then patenting the results, I would wholeheartedly agree with you--economic incentive works in this situation. But that's not what CRA does! They're trying to set themselves up as a permanent gatekeeper to the genome by speeding by the HGP and giving everyone the finger on their way past the finish line. I find this behaviour reprehensible both ethically and scientifically.
Yes, you may claim that the HGP has been accelerated by the existence of CRA. Don't kid yourself. If the cost of this "speedup" is the loss of some large percentage of the genome from the public research sphere for 17 years, then we've slowed down research, not speeded it up.
"But he's missing the point: When he "licensed" the original Quake source, Carmack excercised his right to deny Slade the right to deny anyone else access to his code....He's free to restrict people, but the moment he does, his loses his right to distribute the source."
It's not strictly true that Carmack excercised his right to deny future distribution restrictions. Slade *could* legally restrict the audience for his web and FTP sites, and thereby restrict the people who can download the software. Of course, Slade *has* to provide the source code to all those who download binaries, and those people would have to provide source if they redistributed, and so on, ad infinitum. So, this Slade fellow *can* de facto restrict distribution, but he must abide by the terms of the original license, as will all of those who download and distribute the software from Slade.
The problem with Slade's logic, of course, is that he confuses rights granted to himself, and rights that he grants to others. Carmack, by placing Quake source under the GPL, has granted a finite and immutable set of rights to Slade. Slade, in turn, may place restrictions upon those resources which are under his legal control--his computers, disks, website, etc. Those resources licensed from Carmack, however (the Quake source), cannot be used under different terms than the original license agreement (GPL).
Slade seems conscious of this distinction--note where he acknowledges that he is "legally required" to distribute source code. However, he steps over the line when he prevents the users of his resources from "asking" for the source, thus presuming that he has dodged the requirement of distribution of source code. He's correct, in a way--I don't have the right to ask for the source--but he is still as obligated as ever to provide the source under the terms of the GPL. And for that reason, we should all politely inform him that he is in violation of the GPL, until he gets so tired of the traffic that he caves or quits distributing his software completely...
The stuff they're selling is green, and it uses genes from jellyfish "caught off the coast of Washington." I originally thought the stuff might be Green Flourescent Protein, but you need to have long wave UV light to make it glow. So what is it? Luciferase?
PALM's clear profit margin is an obvious liability in "the new economy." Their P/L (price to loss) ratio just can't compete with LNUX, RHAT or the other big boys.
When will these starry-eyed corporate types learn? I mean, if a company already has a profit margin, then it can't have room for the immensely valuable future growth, right? Right??;)
Did anyone happen to notice the way 3COM stock has shot up as a result of this spin-off? Given the absurdity cloud that already seems to be forming around this IPO, it's probably going to do another VA...3COM may be a better bet, if you can't get in on the pre-IPO price.
"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)."
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...
What about VA is so unique and wonderful that it justifies this price? Dell does make good machines, and if it wanted to (read: if it was worth it), it could easily whup VA on VA's own field. Same goes for IBM, HP, SGI, SUN, and just about every other manufacturer of high-end PC's.
The fact that these companies *haven't* jumped into this niche should be a warning sign to most investors--despite our enthusiasm for Linux, it represents a teeny tiny market right now. So stinkin' tiny that its barely worth the expense for the big boys to adopt it as a platform. But they *do* see Linux on the horizon, and that's all that matters. Marginal investment into Linux by any of the biggies is a slow and steady method that will allow them to whallop VA if and when the time comes. I really like Linux, but this is getting ridiculous.
The above post is right on. People justify paying $250/share for LNUX now because of the promise of spectacular future growth. But come on--even speculation has its limits, for $DEITY's sake...
There is a tool to quantify future growth. It's called a PEG ratio. Put simply, it expresses the ratio of a stock's P/E multiple to its projected earnings growth per share. In a fully and fairly valued situation, the PEG ratio of a stock = 1. If it's a lot more than 1, the stock's overvalued, and you should be examining the stock as a short potential. If it's a lot less than 1, look to buy. If, on the third hand, you can't compute a PEG because the company doesn't have a P/E (LNUX anyone???) you're speculating on unsubstantiated future value, rumor, or worse.
Let's look at some PEG's:
RHAT: Massively negative E value (-1627). Can't do a PEG.
LNUX: Massively negative E value. Can't do a PEG.
CBLT: Ooooh. E only -235! Its a bargain! =P CAN'T DO A PEG!
Does anyone but me see a trend here? I'm not going to say you can't make real money on these stocks. BUUUT...I won't say you can't make money in Vegas, either...
"What do those rioting people rage against? Tyrants? Taxes? The killing of priests? Or is it just the imposition of a more global economy, that would bring the American standard of living (which I very much enjoy BTW) out of the stratosphere and onto the more level plane of globalisation?"
I may be speaking out of line, but not everyone in that crowd is protesting for protectionist causes, you know.
Greenpeace is protesting, as are a slew of human rights organizations, all in force. And I can pretty much guarantee that those folks aren't protesting in favor of the American worker...
There are a number of people born and raised in this country, who are concerned about the rich-poor gap and its implications. And if you truly believe the WTO, with its current attitudes toward environment and foreign labor laws, are helping to raise the bar for other countries, you may want to think again. The WTO cares if Coke and Phillip Morris can expand in Asia and beyond, not if the piles of discarded soft drink cans and cigarette butts block the way of the thousands of people trying to make it to the state hospital for their weekly chemotherapy treatments...but I digress.
Don't get me wrong. I do sympathize for your cynicism. Its hard to live in this country and realize that our standard of living comes at the cost of other people, somewhere else on this planet. But I hope you realize that at least some of those protesters are out there because they are truly concerned about corporations' cavalier attitudes regarding people around the world, not just in our corner of it...
Gene patents protect use of a patented gene product in any manner. Just like you can't use a patented oil formula (or whatever) in your new product without licensing it from the patent holder, you can't use patented gene product without licensing from the patent holder. This isn't unusual.
Taq DNA polymerase is an example, off the top of my head (but not the best example, I'm sure). To have it, you must be a licensed vendor, or you must buy it from a licensed vendor. You can't legally express the stuff, even if you're not doing PCR with it.
I will note, however, that your example is different, because you're talking about patenting a *sequence*, which is not allowed. This is the truth I alluded to in my earlier post. If that sequence codes for a gene, then your patent covers the polypeptide coded by that gene, not the sequence of the gene itself. Thus, I don't believe one would be restricted from marketing an anti-sense therapeutic based on the sequence. The therapeutic does not make use of the gene, so the patent is not violated.
So perhaps I'll be more exact with my wording:
You _can_ patent a gene product, and that patent will apply to all applications, current or future, discovered or undiscovered.
The sentiment expressed on the above post ("you can't patent sequences") is alarmingly common on/.
Of course, it always gets a lot of attention because:
a) we like to hear it, and b) its grounded in truth.
But "grounded in truth" does not equate to "true."
Yes, its true that you can't strictly patent a gene sequence. So what? You _can_ patent a gene's applications, current or future, discovered or undiscovered. Period. And you don't even need the whole gene sequence to do it.
So....unless your only use for a gene sequence is to make a pretty picture out of it, this means that gene sequences are de facto patentable. You simply can't use them for anything once they're patented (besides, perhaps, abstract art).
Here's something I've been pondering with my own project:
The NPL license is different from the MPL license, for those who don't know. NPL grants special priveleges to Netscape, Inc., so that they may continue to sell closed-source products, and comply with their existing source-licensing deals for the browser. Thus, it is not compatible with the GPL.
The MPL, however, contains no such restrictions, but it does grant the licensee the ability to create closed-source derived works, as long as the original code and its mods are kept open. Still not compatible with the GPL, due to the GPL virus clause...
However, what if someone built a wrapper library that packaged up the API in a tidy way, and interfaced separately with the MPL code and the GPL code. If the wrapper was LGPLed, all would be well (I think), as long as the GPLed code made no direct calls into the MPLed code.
Of course, all of this is exceedingly silly. The ideal solution would be to duel-license the mozilla rendering engine. *sigh*
"This type of patenting has been going on for a long time now...the public is just now beginning to care about it hence the stir and outrage. There's only a few thousand viruses and bacterial plasmids that are patented."
True. There are lots of patented plasmids out there, and you have to pay lots of companies lots of $$ to use them in your experiments. Take taq polymerase, for example. Used by every molecular biologist in the world, and the patent is owned by one company. This is part of the problem. Because of patents like this, the barrier to entry for molecular research is much higher ($100 per tube of taq?) and there is actually a lowered incentive to do this research. Not good.
"Knowing the sequence isn't the power...knowing what a specific sequence does in different contexts and whether it can be used to control other genes is the major application here."
Not acccording to US Patent Law. If you can successfully patent the sequence to a gene, you own the rights to all applications of that gene. I don't see how this gives researchers incentive to do anything now besides hording gene sequences as quickly as possible.
"You don't argue that maps are copyrighted right? they deserve it for doing all the work and as long as the price is reasonable its fair"
Indeed. Maps may be COPYRIGHTED, but they can't be PATENTED. You can patent a novel, useful, unobvious way of constructing a map, but you cant patent the map information itself. This is how gene patents are fundamentally different than maps.
If researchers were patenting the methods they use to subclone DNA fragments and obtain the sequence information, more power to them. They aren't doing that, however. Instead, they're patenting the data they obtain, which they neither invented nor put work into. That's just plain screwy and exploitative.
"The public needs to educate itself quite a bit because right now it is easy to start "scares" about this sort of thing."
And thank [deity] for that. Its about time that people realized the danger represented by the profiteers at companies like Celera. If Celera et al. want to patent new drugs based on these sequences, then great, but they should be required to do some actual work before being rewarded with de facto monopolies on vital research information.
"But seriously, it is good to see that he has realized his limits, and that he would never be able to install it on his own. He is in fact a writer, and I am sure he has better things to do than wile away the hours tracking misbehaving daemons and tweaking vsync frequencies."
YES!
I don't like many of Jon Katz's linux-guru posts, mainly because they're saccharine and inane. I don't see using Linux as a mystical experience, and I certainly wouldn't say that my time using Linux ranks among the most wonderful of my life. So, to hear Katz's brand of "linux is life-affirming" drivel is stomach-turning for me. HOWEVER, in this article Katz seems to finally get it--he doesn't have to understand the system! To him, Linux, or Windows, or MacOS or any other OS is a tool, and only a tool. When he tried to make the big transition to Linux, he sounded like he was trying to impress the/. posters with his nascent geekiness. In finally realizing that he is not technically savvy enough to install Linux, he has done what many of us wanted all along. He acknowledged that he needed help, and that maybe, just maybe, installing an OS was too much for him. HOORAY!
Jon, please, use Linux, love Linux, idolize Linux--but for the love of [deity] know your limits!!!
"the main reason I run Windows98 still is that I run bleeding-edge hardware which Linux/Windows NT both can take months or years to support fully, yet Win9x supports out of the box."
Ummm...No.
If you run bleeding-edge hardware, you almost never get support for it "out of the box," even with Windows. You have to install the drivers that come with the hardware, maybe, but that's a matter of manufacturer support of Windows, NOT Linux support of the hardware in question. Of course, if your idea of bleeding-edge hardware is a new floppy drive or a Zip drive, well...
I wonder who really needs a 2-inch video screen attached to their cell phone? What *I* want is the 3G cell phone tech that allows me to be connected to the net at 384 kbps while walking around town. I've never once desired a video phone, but I'd kill for a universal, mobile, high-speed internet connection...
I dunno...I look at the total subscribers plot, and I see a trend that could be linear, and that could also be a log curve that is just beginning level. Vision is simply not the best way to analyze trends in data plots.
What would be really helpful is one or more fit lines, each with some variance data to show how closely they fit the plot data. Without this, the growth trends ESR is pontificating upon are pretty speculative.
Well, you can certainly look at the reaction to this as "embarassing" and "hyperreactive," but that type of criticism sounds pretty shallow to me. Do you know what Corel would have done had everyone not had a fit over this issue? I don't.
No one seems to know *why* exactly Corel didn't have a clear beta license to begin with (or, for that matter, why they insist on a "beta license" at all). Why should everyone have read the original license, said "their ignorance of the GPL must be an honest mistake" and accepted it as-is?
The rabid GPL activism of Linux folks is a good thing, IMHO. No one is capable of predicting the "correct" level of reaction to a violation at the time, and those who think they can are working within the comfy confines of 20/20 hindsight. These reactions, right or wrong, keep companies honest in the long run, and I want to see that trend continue.
Slashdot Mirror
"What Rosen (Heidi Rosen, RIAA head bitch) indicates that one would have to buy two copies of a CD in order to fairly loan one to someone else. Okay. Why isn't that fair use?"
How can you make that conclusion from Hatch's original question:
"Is it fair use to give the copy to my wife for her car?"
Hatch's quetion is whether or not it's fair use to copy a CD and give the copy away--not whether you can loan your original CD to someone--and frankly, I can't see why one *should* be allowed to copy a CD and give it away, regardless of the relation of the recipient.
Why in the world should copyright law allow us to copy a piece of intellectual property and then give that copy to a relative? Do we justify this by saying that "its fair use because the recipient of the copy is related to the copier"?
Translate the problem domain to the printed text world: Is it--or has it ever been--"fair use" to copy a book and give that copy away? If two people want to read said book at the same time, then two copies of the book should be purchased! If however, you're done with the book, and you want to give the book away, or resell the book, or loan the book out, you're allowed.
Loaning isn't the problem--copying is.
I got my Novice license way back when I was 13, and my General license not long after that. At the time, I was really interested in the long-distance communication that you could acheive with the lower bands (e.g. 10-80 meters), but I became disillusioned by what I heard once I got on the air--typically a bunch of crochety old guys debating politics, or talking about their rigs. Needless to say, I lost interest.
If I had the money and the space today, though, I'd want to get in the high-frequency side of Ham radio. Even in the 80s, projects like AMSAT we're pushing the boundaries of the discipline with microwave and satellite transmission. And then there's amateur television (SSTV, FSTV) and high-speed data transmission (Packet Radio), which have been around for a while, but infrequently used.
If you have the money and interest, I would highly recommend looking into the alternatives to the ragchew folks that dominate the lower bands. Don't forget that the most wonderful thing about Ham radio is the relative lack of restrictions that you face in using the bandwidth--you can experiment to your heart's content, and the FCC won't get on your back (esp. in the upper bands). You might have to get a more advanced license, but the effort is usually worth it in the amount you'll learn, and the amount of bandwidth access you gain.
Tim
KB8KRQ
It's odd to hear that *both* Celera and the HGP are announcing "completion" of the sequencing. Keep in mind that as recently as late last year, the HGP was loudly criticizing Celera for their reckless and largely PR-driven approach to human genome sequencing.
This could suggest a couple of things, IMHO:
1) Celera and the HGP have managed to reach some agreement on IP and the sharing of information between the two efforts, thus ending years of bickering, and providing a more complete map than either could accomplish alone (to date).
or
2) The HGP is racing (probably against the better judgement of its member scientists) to keep up with the steady flow of BS PR that comes out of Celera. For some reason (probably the cynic in me), I think this is the more likely case.
I've never been a fan of Celera--I've read their published data on the fruit fly genome (declared "substantially complete" BTW), and was amused to see coverage gaps big enough to drive a few hundred genes through. This concerns me a lot--once we allow corporate interests to drive science, will we see a degradation in the quality of basic research like this?
TAO is am extremely well-written, standards-compliant, open-source ORB that supports the entire 2.2 spec, and most of the 2.3 spec. I've been using this thing at work for the last 6 months or so, and I've been quite impressed. While it's not perfect, it has fewer gotchas than the commercial ORBs I've used. Did I mention that it's cross-platform, as well?
Here's the URL:
http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/TAO.html
go here
Look at that--a perfect description of brute-force assembly of the human genome. I'm certainly glad you corrected me.
FYI, the technique used by CRA is called shotgun sequencing, and it has been debated before, but until recently was thought too resource intensive for use on very large genomes. For some information outside of CRAs investor's information page, you might try these:
Sequencing of H. Influenzae
Science, July 28, 1995, V269, pp. 496-512
Shotgun Sequencing of the Human Genome
Science, June 5, 1998, V280, pp. 1540-42
(Hmmmm...you'll have to excuse me...I tend to get my misinformation from referred journals rather than corporate websites...)
"In other words, there is a reason that they've been able to do it so fast. They are years ahead of the Human Genome Project."
You know what? You're exactly right--CRA *is* ahead of the HGP, and they are *fast*. That doesn't change the fact that they're using off-the-shelf machinery and publicly available algorithms to do a tedious, well-understood and largely mechanical job.
"Their entire business model is based on selling analysis of the information to drug companies. They already have several large firms signed to use them."
Uh-huh. Go back to CRAs investor's information page and find out how many CRA employees are doing the wet-lab biochemical analysis that will figure out what the genome really means. CRA has hired a few good computational biologists, but these will only get you so far in the world of molecular biology and biochemistry. The real analysis work has to be done by the hordes of laboratory researchers who actually utilize the kind of data were talking about.
So what will CRA do if they don't have lots of these types of researchers? Well, based on CRAs ambiguous business model, my guess is that they're going to package up their sequence data with references to public literature--a la LEXIS/NEXIS. In essence, a repackager of human genome data. I have absolutely no problem with this.
I do have a problem with the way CRA is taking a scorched-earth policy to patenting genes. *This* is the real reason that drug companies have signed up with CRA for early access--they're hoping to get their dirty little mitts on the hot genes in CRAs patent portfolio--and in the process, get an exclusive license agreement for the use of the same. CRA may only patent 300 or so of the thousands of genes they have preliminary patents on, but these 300 will have been carefully picked over by CRA and the drug companies so that no one else gets access to anything of serious value. Now, explain to me how this sort of behavior is supposed to encourage calculated risk and entrepreneurism in the biotech community?
"Why don't you read their investor statements before spouting off about which you know nothing."
I hope you have a nice day too.
Are you related to Bill Gates? Because you sure spout the same story as Bill.
CRA hasn't "innovated in the area of genetics" any more than Microsoft has "innovated" in the area of "browsers." What CRA has done is thrown tons of money at a well-understood and largely mechanical problem, and as a result, has the resources to complete it faster.
You think CRA innovates? I've got news--they're using off-the-shelf machinery to do a brute-force assembly of the human genome. It's not magic, it's not a new idea, and it certainly isn't novel enough to patent the approach they're using (which, considering today's lax patent standards, is saying quite a bit). Its like saying we should give exclusive lawnmowing rights to one guy because he went out and bought the biggest damn lawnmower in the nation (after all, he spent the money, right?)
"We will get results far, far faster letting the free market do the work with normal economic incentives, rather than letting a bunch of government researchers take decades to do something with the information."
First off, CRA isn't *doing* squat with the sequence data they collect. They are neither equipped nor staffed to do the science that will determine the function of the genes that they sequence. What CRA *is* doing is what pundits call "prospecting the genome." I call it genome squatting.
If CRA were inventing drugs based on genome research, and then patenting the results, I would wholeheartedly agree with you--economic incentive works in this situation. But that's not what CRA does! They're trying to set themselves up as a permanent gatekeeper to the genome by speeding by the HGP and giving everyone the finger on their way past the finish line. I find this behaviour reprehensible both ethically and scientifically.
Yes, you may claim that the HGP has been accelerated by the existence of CRA. Don't kid yourself. If the cost of this "speedup" is the loss of some large percentage of the genome from the public research sphere for 17 years, then we've slowed down research, not speeded it up.
"But he's missing the point: When he "licensed" the original Quake source, Carmack excercised his right to deny Slade the right to deny anyone else access to his code....He's free to restrict people, but the moment he does, his loses his right to distribute the source."
It's not strictly true that Carmack excercised his right to deny future distribution restrictions. Slade *could* legally restrict the audience for his web and FTP sites, and thereby restrict the people who can download the software. Of course, Slade *has* to provide the source code to all those who download binaries, and those people would have to provide source if they redistributed, and so on, ad infinitum. So, this Slade fellow *can* de facto restrict distribution, but he must abide by the terms of the original license, as will all of those who download and distribute the software from Slade.
The problem with Slade's logic, of course, is that he confuses rights granted to himself, and rights that he grants to others. Carmack, by placing Quake source under the GPL, has granted a finite and immutable set of rights to Slade. Slade, in turn, may place restrictions upon those resources which are under his legal control--his computers, disks, website, etc. Those resources licensed from Carmack, however (the Quake source), cannot be used under different terms than the original license agreement (GPL).
Slade seems conscious of this distinction--note where he acknowledges that he is "legally required" to distribute source code. However, he steps over the line when he prevents the users of his resources from "asking" for the source, thus presuming that he has dodged the requirement of distribution of source code. He's correct, in a way--I don't have the right to ask for the source--but he is still as obligated as ever to provide the source under the terms of the GPL. And for that reason, we should all politely inform him that he is in violation of the GPL, until he gets so tired of the traffic that he caves or quits distributing his software completely...
What do you mean by "probably not a gene"?
I was guessing that Ca is a cofactor for the enzyme too, but which enzyme? Do they actually mention luciferins somewhere on the product site?
The stuff they're selling is green, and it uses genes from jellyfish "caught off the coast of Washington." I originally thought the stuff might be Green Flourescent Protein, but you need to have long wave UV light to make it glow. So what is it? Luciferase?
PALM's clear profit margin is an obvious liability in "the new economy." Their P/L (price to loss) ratio just can't compete with LNUX, RHAT or the other big boys.
;)
When will these starry-eyed corporate types learn? I mean, if a company already has a profit margin, then it can't have room for the immensely valuable future growth, right? Right??
Did anyone happen to notice the way 3COM stock has shot up as a result of this spin-off? Given the absurdity cloud that already seems to be forming around this IPO, it's probably going to do another VA...3COM may be a better bet, if you can't get in on the pre-IPO price.
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...
What about VA is so unique and wonderful that it justifies this price? Dell does make good machines, and if it wanted to (read: if it was worth it), it could easily whup VA on VA's own field. Same goes for IBM, HP, SGI, SUN, and just about every other manufacturer of high-end PC's.
The fact that these companies *haven't* jumped into this niche should be a warning sign to most investors--despite our enthusiasm for Linux, it represents a teeny tiny market right now. So stinkin' tiny that its barely worth the expense for the big boys to adopt it as a platform. But they *do* see Linux on the horizon, and that's all that matters. Marginal investment into Linux by any of the biggies is a slow and steady method that will allow them to whallop VA if and when the time comes. I really like Linux, but this is getting ridiculous.
The above post is right on. People justify paying $250/share for LNUX now because of the promise of spectacular future growth. But come on--even speculation has its limits, for $DEITY's sake...
There is a tool to quantify future growth. It's called a PEG ratio. Put simply, it expresses the ratio of a stock's P/E multiple to its projected earnings growth per share. In a fully and fairly valued situation, the PEG ratio of a stock = 1. If it's a lot more than 1, the stock's overvalued, and you should be examining the stock as a short potential. If it's a lot less than 1, look to buy. If, on the third hand, you can't compute a PEG because the company doesn't have a P/E (LNUX anyone???) you're speculating on unsubstantiated future value, rumor, or worse.
Let's look at some PEG's:
RHAT:
Massively negative E value (-1627). Can't do a PEG.
LNUX:
Massively negative E value. Can't do a PEG.
CBLT:
Ooooh. E only -235! Its a bargain! =P
CAN'T DO A PEG!
Does anyone but me see a trend here?
I'm not going to say you can't make real money on these stocks. BUUUT...I won't say you can't make money in Vegas, either...
I may be speaking out of line, but not everyone in that crowd is protesting for protectionist causes, you know.
Greenpeace is protesting, as are a slew of human rights organizations, all in force. And I can pretty much guarantee that those folks aren't protesting in favor of the American worker...
There are a number of people born and raised in this country, who are concerned about the rich-poor gap and its implications. And if you truly believe the WTO, with its current attitudes toward environment and foreign labor laws, are helping to raise the bar for other countries, you may want to think again. The WTO cares if Coke and Phillip Morris can expand in Asia and beyond, not if the piles of discarded soft drink cans and cigarette butts block the way of the thousands of people trying to make it to the state hospital for their weekly chemotherapy treatments...but I digress.
Don't get me wrong. I do sympathize for your cynicism. Its hard to live in this country and realize that our standard of living comes at the cost of other people, somewhere else on this planet. But I hope you realize that at least some of those protesters are out there because they are truly concerned about corporations' cavalier attitudes regarding people around the world, not just in our corner of it...
Gene patents protect use of a patented gene product in any manner. Just like you can't use a patented oil formula (or whatever) in your new product without licensing it from the patent holder, you can't use patented gene product without licensing from the patent holder. This isn't unusual.
Taq DNA polymerase is an example, off the top of my head (but not the best example, I'm sure). To have it, you must be a licensed vendor, or you must buy it from a licensed vendor. You can't legally express the stuff, even if you're not doing PCR with it.
I will note, however, that your example is different, because you're talking about patenting a *sequence*, which is not allowed. This is the truth I alluded to in my earlier post. If that sequence codes for a gene, then your patent covers the polypeptide coded by that gene, not the sequence of the gene itself. Thus, I don't believe one would be restricted from marketing an anti-sense therapeutic based on the sequence. The therapeutic does not make use of the gene, so the patent is not violated.
So perhaps I'll be more exact with my wording:
You _can_ patent a gene product, and that patent will apply to all applications, current or future, discovered or undiscovered.
The sentiment expressed on the above post ("you can't patent sequences") is alarmingly common on /.
Of course, it always gets a lot of attention because:
a) we like to hear it, and
b) its grounded in truth.
But "grounded in truth" does not equate to "true."
Yes, its true that you can't strictly patent a gene sequence. So what? You _can_ patent a gene's applications, current or future, discovered or undiscovered. Period. And you don't even need the whole gene sequence to do it.
So....unless your only use for a gene sequence is to make a pretty picture out of it, this means that gene sequences are de facto patentable. You simply can't use them for anything once they're patented (besides, perhaps, abstract art).
Here's something I've been pondering with my own project:
The NPL license is different from the MPL license, for those who don't know. NPL grants special priveleges to Netscape, Inc., so that they may continue to sell closed-source products, and comply with their existing source-licensing deals for the browser. Thus, it is not compatible with the GPL.
The MPL, however, contains no such restrictions, but it does grant the licensee the ability to create closed-source derived works, as long as the original code and its mods are kept open. Still not compatible with the GPL, due to the GPL virus clause...
However, what if someone built a wrapper library that packaged up the API in a tidy way, and interfaced separately with the MPL code and the GPL code. If the wrapper was LGPLed, all would be well (I think), as long as the GPLed code made no direct calls into the MPLed code.
Of course, all of this is exceedingly silly. The ideal solution would be to duel-license the mozilla rendering engine. *sigh*
True. There are lots of patented plasmids out there, and you have to pay lots of companies lots of $$ to use them in your experiments. Take taq polymerase, for example. Used by every molecular biologist in the world, and the patent is owned by one company. This is part of the problem. Because of patents like this, the barrier to entry for molecular research is much higher ($100 per tube of taq?) and there is actually a lowered incentive to do this research. Not good.
"Knowing the sequence isn't the power...knowing what a specific sequence does in different contexts and whether it can be used to control other genes is the major application here."
Not acccording to US Patent Law. If you can successfully patent the sequence to a gene, you own the rights to all applications of that gene. I don't see how this gives researchers incentive to do anything now besides hording gene sequences as quickly as possible.
"You don't argue that maps are copyrighted right? they deserve it for doing all the work and as long as the price is reasonable its fair"
Indeed. Maps may be COPYRIGHTED, but they can't be PATENTED. You can patent a novel, useful, unobvious way of constructing a map, but you cant patent the map information itself. This is how gene patents are fundamentally different than maps.
If researchers were patenting the methods they use to subclone DNA fragments and obtain the sequence information, more power to them. They aren't doing that, however. Instead, they're patenting the data they obtain, which they neither invented nor put work into. That's just plain screwy and exploitative.
"The public needs to educate itself quite a bit because right now it is easy to start "scares" about this sort of thing."
And thank [deity] for that. Its about time that people realized the danger represented by the profiteers at companies like Celera. If Celera et al. want to patent new drugs based on these sequences, then great, but they should be required to do some actual work before being rewarded with de facto monopolies on vital research information.
"But seriously, it is good to see that he has realized his limits, and that he would never be able to install it on his own. He is in fact a writer, and I am sure he has better things to do than wile away the hours tracking misbehaving daemons and tweaking vsync frequencies."
/. posters with his nascent geekiness. In finally realizing that he is not technically savvy enough to install Linux, he has done what many of us wanted all along. He acknowledged that he needed help, and that maybe, just maybe, installing an OS was too much for him. HOORAY!
YES!
I don't like many of Jon Katz's linux-guru posts, mainly because they're saccharine and inane. I don't see using Linux as a mystical experience, and I certainly wouldn't say that my time using Linux ranks among the most wonderful of my life. So, to hear Katz's brand of "linux is life-affirming" drivel is stomach-turning for me. HOWEVER, in this article Katz seems to finally get it--he doesn't have to understand the system! To him, Linux, or Windows, or MacOS or any other OS is a tool, and only a tool. When he tried to make the big transition to Linux, he sounded like he was trying to impress the
Jon, please, use Linux, love Linux, idolize Linux--but for the love of [deity] know your limits!!!
"the main reason I run Windows98 still is that I run bleeding-edge hardware which Linux/Windows NT both can take months or years to support fully, yet Win9x supports out of the box."
Ummm...No.
If you run bleeding-edge hardware, you almost never get support for it "out of the box," even with Windows. You have to install the drivers that come with the hardware, maybe, but that's a matter of manufacturer support of Windows, NOT Linux support of the hardware in question. Of course, if your idea of bleeding-edge hardware is a new floppy drive or a Zip drive, well...
I wonder who really needs a 2-inch video screen attached to their cell phone? What *I* want is the 3G cell phone tech that allows me to be connected to the net at 384 kbps while walking around town. I've never once desired a video phone, but I'd kill for a universal, mobile, high-speed internet connection...
I dunno...I look at the total subscribers plot, and I see a trend that could be linear, and that could also be a log curve that is just beginning level. Vision is simply not the best way to analyze trends in data plots.
What would be really helpful is one or more fit lines, each with some variance data to show how closely they fit the plot data. Without this, the growth trends ESR is pontificating upon are pretty speculative.
Well, you can certainly look at the reaction to this as "embarassing" and "hyperreactive," but that type of criticism sounds pretty shallow to me. Do you know what Corel would have done had everyone not had a fit over this issue? I don't.
No one seems to know *why* exactly Corel didn't have a clear beta license to begin with (or, for that matter, why they insist on a "beta license" at all). Why should everyone have read the original license, said "their ignorance of the GPL must be an honest mistake" and accepted it as-is?
The rabid GPL activism of Linux folks is a good thing, IMHO. No one is capable of predicting the "correct" level of reaction to a violation at the time, and those who think they can are working within the comfy confines of 20/20 hindsight. These reactions, right or wrong, keep companies honest in the long run, and I want to see that trend continue.