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Venter Institute Claims Patent on Synthetic Life
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Jun 07, 2007 03:15 PM
from the we-made-you-we-can-unmake-you dept.
from the we-made-you-we-can-unmake-you dept.
jimsnail writes "J. Craig Venter and the Institute that bears his name are again moving into new territory in the field of genetics. Genetic patents, that is. They are seeking a broad patent that would give them ownership of a 'free living organism that can grow and replicate' constructed entirely from synthetic DNA. The ETC Group is challenging the claim. 'Scientists at the institute designed the bacterium to have a "minimal genome"--the smallest set of genes any organism can live on. The project, which began in the early 2000s, was partly a philosophical exercise: to help define life itself better by identifying its bare-bones requirements. But it was also fraught with commercial possibilities: if one could reliably recreate a standardized, minimal life form, other useful genes could be added in as needed for various purposes.'"
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Team Claims Synthetic Life Feat 112 comments
gertvs writes "According to the BBC scientists in the US have taken a step towards producing life from scratch in the laboratory by having successfully transplanted an entire genome from one bacterium cell to another. This technique could possibly lead to the creation of 'designer' microbes producing fuel or help cleaning toxic waste. 'The ultimate plan is to stitch together artificial chromosomes, proteins and other building blocks with the aim of jumpstarting their designer microbe to life. But Dr. [Craig] Venter concedes that this may be a long way away, but he says he has taken an important key step towards that goal. His team, essentially, snatched the body of another life-form and invaded it with a new genetic code. This, he says, will be a key tool in testing the artificial chromosomes - or DNA bundles - he plans to make. '"
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That's okay (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's okay (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
MUHAHAHAHAHA! MUHAHAHAHA!
Evil genius is me!
Gerbluh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gerbluh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
like, "We OWNz teH tUbes!!!!1!" or something.
At the very least this fails obviousness test until they have methodology. Like they were the first people ever to have the idea to make a synthetic organism that reproduces and propagates itself through a genetic code. Given that's how natural life works, seems like a bit of a no brainer.
I hope the patent is rejected with a "DUrrrrrr" stamp o
Not patenting all life... (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article: "The researchers filed their patent claim on the artificial organism and on its genome."
These guys have created a brand new form of life from the ground up and are patenting their particular genome. It's hard work, and certainly not obvious or trivial. Given that other biological systems are patentable (e.g., the Harvard mouse, new strains of wheat), this certainly seems to clear the bar for patentability.
Parent
Re:Not patenting all life... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No it does not. It reads as follows:
Claim 1. A set of protein-coding genes that provides the information required for growth and replication of a free-living organism under axenic conditions in a rich bacterial culture medium, wherein the set lacks at least 40 of the 101 protein-coding genes listed in Table 2, or functional equivalents thereof, wherein at least one of the genes in Table 4
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If I read between the lines correctly, they have a rough idea of the functions of 482 genes of a bacteria. They think that 101 of them are non-essential for survial and 381 are for protein encoding (how many genes aren't?).
They want to patent the guess and ask any people who create new strains of bacteria base on that tiny bit of knowledge to pay up?!
Can you do that?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well, patent attorney i may not be, but RTFA i did, so you can take your arrogant "knowing the mere basics" bullshit and shove it.
TFA did mention very specifically that this patent application was for the minimum genes necessary for life. Now while in the specific instance, they are merely trying to patent the genome of this single microbe. But given their stated intentions to use that then as the building block for engineering other single-celled organisms by simply dropping in the necessary genes, thi
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I prosecute and litigate patents for a living. Your bluster concerning my ability to "muddle through a patent application" does not cure your error. Neither does your reliance on "TFA," which is egregious
The patent madness (Score:3, Interesting)
It's interesting, really. Both the US and the EU patent offices are more than happy to give out patents that are *way* overbroad.
Presumably, this is a part of the transition to an "IP economy", and they've been instructed to keep lower standards as to make sure most of the IP cake has been divided before the international competition becomes too rough.
And then they use heavy-handed tactics to force other countries to submit, misusing the Berne convention [wikipedia.org] and the WTO
Patent for Air (Score:2)
2 cents,
QueenB.
Is that what they're patenting? (Score:2)
If they are patenting the "organism from scratch" concept, then the problem doesn't seem to be ethical,
Re: (Score:2)
The patent application [uspto.gov] looks pretty specific to me, actually.
this is sick (Score:3, Funny)
Great (Score:2)
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You're welcome!
Yeah. (Score:2)
ID theory to the rescue (Score:5, Funny)
Did I just discover a scientifically *useful* application of ID wack-theory? If so, is the universe going to implode, or am I about to be flamed to fiery hell by people who never evolved a sarcasmeter?
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</sarcasm>
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
personal genome patents? (Score:2)
Perhaps everyone should patent their own genomes. (Would the lack of having the actual sequence be a problem for the patent office? Hard to believe.) Then everyone could sue everyone else for infringing.
Sorry, you were patented.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
source
http://oldfraser.lexi.net/media/media_releases/20
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm afraid you're way behind the times! I did mention some delayed consequences of US borrowing, right? Check out this graph [yahoo.com]: the Canadian dollar is now within spitting distance of the mighty USD - from a 60% difference to a 6% difference in just over 4 years!
Re: (Score:2)
In related news... (Score:2)
Drunk man's interpretation (Score:2)
USPTO application text (Score:5, Informative)
heh (Score:4, Funny)
Mixed Reaction (Score:3, Interesting)
My reaction to this is mixed. First, I'm suspicious of this kind of sweeping patent protection in general. And it is far from clear (in the cited article at least) that they actually have such a genome yet, so patent protection seems strange. "We think we are going to do this, so grant us a patent."
On the other hand it may take 20 years or so to actually be able to use this kind of technology in meaningful ways (and have drugs produced this way approved by the government). So granting patent protection now means that it would expire just about the time that people might be able to take advantage of it.
On the other other hand, if they really are patenting the idea, they'll probably re-patent (or extend the patent with new claims or however that works) any usable variation when they actually get it so they're likely to find ways to stretch such patent protection out for quite a while.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The question is, have they actually made this bacteria, and does it actually live, reproduce and die like a bacteria should? At this point it's not clear they invented anything, more than just taking a bacteria, re
Just a quick flash idea... (Score:2)
(badgers, badgers, badgers becomes) patents, patents, patents
(mushroom, mushroom becomes) lawsuit, lawsuit
(snake part goes) Out-of Court settlement! Settlement
Etc.
Thanks. I have no skills.
Cheers,
Mike...
The future is not bright... (Score:3, Interesting)
British already did it... (Score:2)
Title is wrong, or at best misleading. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
It's happened before if I remember correctly (see Monsanto GM s
I'd offer myself as prior art.. (Score:3, Funny)
Too late, prior art (Score:2)
Seems as though a patent for artificial life, belonging to one Victor Frankenstein, has already expired. Along with a sub-category submitted by Abby Normal, signed off by The Man with Two Brains.
Take it to the courts! (Score:2)
"Dibs" on a new steady revenue stream (Score:2)
There's no prior art yet, and it's inevitable.
I claim prior art and have one example to submit (Score:2)
I used the GATC encoding scheme.
All your offspring are belong to me.
I just trumped all y'alls (Score:2)
It's not about patenting life (Score:2, Informative)
misleading title, marginal patent (Score:4, Informative)
As mentioned previously they're not patenting synthetic life but a specific minimal set of genes required to produce a replicating bacterium. There was a non-trivial amount of work that went into researching these genes and determining the least combinations necessary for replication in a solution that provides all the basic building blocks (ie. this bacteria will not be synthesizing its own amino acids, I would imagine).
This is could be important for industrial biosynthetic applications. Every protein expressed by a bacteria increases its metabolic load and decreases the efficiency with which it can convert input (sugars, amino acids, nucleotides) into the desired output (insulin, drugs, other useful biocompounds). By determining the minimum necessary set of genes for replication a ground-state bacteria has been designed that can be used as the starting point for designing more efficient expression systems.
It also allows these expression systems to be more fully characterized which can help when attempting to determine and modulate the effect metabolic load and evolution will have on a vat of bacteria as it progresses from generation to generation. One problem with these systems is that synthesizing extra compounds increases the metabolic and decreases the replication rate. If it is possible for the bacteria to mutate and stop expression of the product their metabolic load decreases and they begin to replicate faster; this causes vats of bacteria to tend to evolve such that they stop producing the useful compound. There are ways to get around this (such as turning production on and off using external chemical signals, tying production to survival, etc.) that might be optimized in such a minimal system. Engineering life is tricky because of the extremely high number of potential interactions to be analyzed for every new configuration; it is more difficult because many of these interactions can't be calculated or simulated.
This patent won't be all that useful for more complex human proteins as these require an array of post-translational modification proteins that change the product after the initial synthesis; thus they require a correspondingly complex expression system derived from a yeast cell or an animal cell (I think some worms have been used to develop complex expression systems); Alternately bacteria can be modified to produce the modification proteins. These expression systems have doubtless already been patented or are no longer patentable, so this new patent probably won't be very useful until it is bundled with a set of associated patents for efficient expression systems for various compounds.
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