Venter Institute Claims Patent on Synthetic Life

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.'"

That's okay

[morgan_greywolf]

I just patented DNA replication. That's right. J. Craig Vetner, along with everyone else here, must pay up now, be sued, or die.

Gerbluh?

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

Uh, doesnt that seem rather overbroad? I mean, there's nothing about methodology, just 'we own any synthetic life.' What utter bullshit. Why dont they try to patent nonsynthetic life while they're at it?

Re:Gerbluh?

[UbuntuDupe]

It's not much different from "we own anything that results in being able to make an online purchase via one click."

Idea ownership (you have heard all this before)

[Anonymous Coward]

Patents are a means of preventing people from making productive use of the technology and information available to them. This creates artificial scarcity, which ultimately makes a lot of money for a very few people. It also technologically and practically impoverishes the rest of the world (by preventing collaboration and also production).

I am very familiar with the economic arguments about needing to secure a return on investment, and they are bunk. The most glaring part of it is the fallacy of excluded middle (or slippery slope), stated: "If a company can't guarantee that it makes all the money that there is to be made on this idea, and that nobody else makes any money on it, then the company won't be able to make any money at all on it." Lies...there is plenty of money to be made selling a product in the face of competition...in fact our whole economy is built around the need for this.

On top of that...where there is a demand there is a supply. For example, if people need some disease cured, but no drug company wants to invest the RnD funding to make medicine for it...which is unlikely...but even if it does happen money can also come from private donations and government grants. One way or another, the problems will be solved, and patents are not needed.

So, IMO, patents give us nothing of value and deprive us of the ability to work together and to make productive use of the information available to us.

Thought control is bad.

Re:Gerbluh?

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

I feel like there should be some bad chat/leet speak in there though, to really hammer home how stupid of an idea it is.

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 on it.

Not patenting all life...

[PhysicsPhil]

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.

Re:Not patenting all life...

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

Granted, however it reads as though it seeks to cover any and all future synthetic life as well. By defining terms in such a broad fashion, they leave little room for others to follow, regardless of methodology. And that's bullcrap.

Re:Title is wrong, or at best misleading.

[Anonymous Coward]

What stops this particular organism from naturally coming into being through good ol' evolution?...I pity the fool who gets sued for infringement over some "synthetic life patent": "Take him down, he's got an identical bacteria to our synthetic one in his intestine!

That's like saying "What if you're born with a pattern of freckles that spells out the text of The Da Vinci Code?" The sun will die out before it happens.

Don't be afraid. Be very very afraid

[presidenteloco]

Ok, so what do we know?
Lifeforms reproduce themselves, patterning surrounding matter and
energy into more of their own form.

Over several billions of years, natural ecosystems have evolved
checks and balances on overabundance of any particular lifeform.
Other lifeforms co-evolved and the lifeforms limit each other
(by eating each other, by competing for the same resources, etc.)

The ecosystems change, but rather gradually, as many stalemates
(equilibria) in the energy and strategy balance of the
competitive patterning game evolve.

So now we have Joe or Jane Scientist, or gene-engineer, thinking
"I'm pretty damn smart. I know my sh*t.
Got it 'Piled higher & Deeper' in fact.

Why don't I just unleash my patented self-replicating, resource-patterning
machine, and let's see what happens.

On the bright side, most things they could come up with will be no match
for the 3 billion year evolved competition.

On the other side, they could be unlucky, and make something that no other
lifeform recognized, or could eat, or could compete with for resources.

Oh, too bad. Start game over.

Re:Sorry, you were patented....

[timeOday]

That's Canadian dollars, right? What is that in real money? About $15-$20 or so, right?

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!