Slashback: Cancer, Cats, ICANN

Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including the demystification of Australia's "Mystery Cat", the US Government backs Microsoft in their battle against Korea, RedHat joins the fun and decides to invest in India's economy, the ICANN community slams the VeriSign deal, and Clinical results from the cancer-killing virus trials - read on for details.

Australia's mystery cat demystified. Bitsy Boffin writes "Back in October Slashdot ran a story from the Herald Sun about the shooting of a mystery "Big Cat" in Australia. At the time the tail (the only part the hunter brought back) of said cat had been sent off for DNA testing. The Herald Sun reports the findings of those DNA tests which show that the mystery cat wasn't a leopard or jaguar, just a really, really big feral cat."

US backs Microsoft in Korean antitrust case. CODiNE writes "Stating that 'Korea's remedy goes beyond what is necessary or appropriate to protect consumers' the Justice Department's antitrust division rejects the recent Korean FTC ruling. 'Sound antitrust policy should protect competition, not competitors, and must avoid chilling innovation and competition even by "dominant" companies.'"

RedHat follows Indian investment trend. An anonymous reader writes "After several other companies have decided to invest in the Indian economy it looks like RedHat will be following suit. According to the article, RedHat plans on hiring about 300 people for an investment of about $20M."

ICANN community slams VeriSign deal. Rob writes to tell us that an overwhelming amount of the ICANN community recently took a stand against a proposed deal that would allow VeriSign to raise the price of .com domain names by up to 50%. VeriSign accused ICANN of illegally "regulating" its business. ICANN had previously blocked services VeriSign wanted to launch on the grounds that they would harm the stability of the internet.

Clinical results from cancer-killing virus. just___giver writes "Results from human clinical trials show that terminally ill patients with aggressive metastasized cancer are receiving benefit from the recently covered virus that kills cancer when it is administered intravenously. They still have higher doses to test in this ongoing study. This safe, naturally occurring, unmodified virus has a remarkable ability to infect and kill cancer cells, without affecting normal, healthy cells. Numerous other third party studies show that the Reovirus should be an important discovery in the treatment of 2/3 of all human cancers. It is patented, easy to manufacture in large quantities, and even increases the effectiveness of conventional chemo and radiation therapy. Numerous phase 2 studies are being planned for 2006." OncolyticsBiotech also has a short video describing the process.

Oh Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

A cheap, easy cure for cancer? No. It's Patented. It'll still be horribly expensive.

Cancer-fighting virus?

[Army of 1 in 10]

What guarantee is there that this virus won't end up mutating into something worse than the cancer it's supposed to fight?

I don't understand

[mr_zorg]

This safe, naturally occurring, unmodified virus... It is patented...

I guess I really don't understand the purpose of a patent. If it is a naturally occurring, unmodified virus, why on Earth should you be able to patent it? But I suppose if they can patent the human genome...

Or is it really the application of this virus as cancer therapy that's been patented?

Re:Cancer-fighting virus?

[SteveAstro]

Errrr. Worse than terminal metastatic cancer ? Sorry ? How "worse" ?

Steve

2 out of 3

[moosesocks]

It is patented, easy to manufacture in large quantities, and even increases the effectiveness of conventional chemo and radiation therapy.

Well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

But seriously. If it's 'naturally occuring' and easy to manufacture, how the hell do they have a patent on this? I'm a hardcore capitalist, but being as how this could be the holy grail of modern medicine, I think the government definitely needs to step in to make sure us mere mortals can afford it (no pun intended).

Cancer

[Lord_Dweomer]

This is absolutely fantastic. And frankly, this is the sort of thing someone should be rewarded for. Not everybody gets to claim "I found a cure for cancer".

However, I have to admit that I am a bit trouble by this being patented. It is naturally occuring, easy to create, etc. The only thing that could possibly complicate this is a greedy corporation who has the patent and wants to enforce it and make tons of money. So rather than use government and philanthropist and charity money to cure a LOT of cancer, this company will be making billions off of a potentially life saving natural drug.

Now of course none of this has happened yet...but I won't be too surprised if it does.

Re:I don't understand

[Shadow Wrought]

why on Earth should you be able to patent it?

Without reading TFA, I'd guess that the patent is not on the virus itself but on the large scale production and use of it in a clinical manner.

On behalf of the old people of the world:

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for your comments, US government. Now keep your nose the fuck out of other countries' business.

Seriously. Whenever another country dares to suggest that the US government has done something wrong, we get page after page of whining about how nobody has any right to tell the USA what to do. But does the US respect other countries' sovereignty? Grief, no. That's different.

Re:Oh Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

At least it was horribly cheap to produce ... oh wait, no, someone spent millions or, more likely, billions of dollars to create it.

Terminology...

[stienman]

RedHat follows Indian investment trend

Is that what people are calling outsourcing now?

-Adam

For USA citizens...

[Anonymous Coward]

...who wonder why you have a reputation for being arrogant, this is a perfect example. Your government has "rejected" a decision by a Korean court about Korean law. An American company has said that the Korean court didn't "properly apply" Korean law. Perhaps it escaped your attention, but if South Korea want laws to work in a certain way, it's not your place to say whether that is okay or not. Other countries don't need your approval if they want to enforce their own laws in their own terroritory.

Patenting virii

[Locke2005]

This safe, naturally occurring, unmodified virus... is patented Can't God or Darwin or somebody claim prior art on this? Pardon me while I file a patent on EVERY existing genome... I'll own EVERYTHING!

Re:Bruce McDonald: get back to work!

[$RANDOMLUSER]

"But sir, Microsoft donated eleventy zillion dollars to your re-election campaing. And Bill and Melinda had you on their yacht."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Bruce, you're doin' a heckuva job!"

Re:Cancer-fighting virus?

[Spy der Mann]

Terminal metastatic cancer that's contagious would be worse.

You mean like the Human Papiloma Virus that affects millions of women every year?

Re:Cancer-fighting virus?

[meburke]

I noticed the phrase, "safe, naturally-occurring" and "patented" in the artical. This, to me, represents the failure of our IP system. Nobody has explained to me how it right to patent something that is "naturally-occurring". To me, the discovery process, discovery tools, extraction, storage and methods of use or distribution should all be patentable, but NOT the virus itself. Anyone care to forward an argument otherwise?