Stem Cell Patent Halts Hospital's Collection 223
eldavojohn writes "It's a classic case that comes up when dealing with patents. A hospital's research on the donated brains of deceased children has been in limbo for three years because of a challenge from a patent holder. The double-edged sword of patents that spurred investment into the field will also cause chilling effects on research like the case of the Children's Hospital of Orange County. They've now been forced to shift the money from the lab to lawyers in order to deal with this ongoing patent dispute over a technique that was developed to extract stem cells at the Salk Institute. Unfortunately the Salk Institute failed to patent the technology, so a company named StemCells happily had it approved. The real disheartening news is that CHOC's Dr. Philip H. Schwartz — the doctor collecting the cells — was one of the original researchers who helped developed this technique at the Salk Institute. Now he can't even use the technique he helped create. Schwartz has since been instructed not to publicly discuss the case further. Research interests are clashing with commercial interests in a classic case that causes one to wonder if patents surrounding medical techniques like this stretch too far. As for the people that donated their dead child's brain to research, those valuable stem cell cultures have been kept in storage instead of being disseminated to research labs (which desperately need them) across the country."
How patently stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
A group that didn't invent it shouldn't even be able to patent it. Fuck you, "StemCells", fuck you to the grave.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Nobody should be able to patent it. The original inventors could just as well be the patent trolls keeping stem cells out of hospitals.
Re:How patently stupid. (Score:5, Informative)
Didn't RTFA?
One of the doctors complaining is one of the doctors that invented the process.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps that could be re-phrased to make sense?
Basically what you are saying is that the other person was saying that if the doctors held the patent then they would have the ability to hold up uptake of the technology they developed.
That is idiotic. Of course they could, but that totally ignores every single aspect of this issue. Yes the doctors if they were the patent holders could be as bad as the patent trolls, but it is the doctors who developed the tech who are the ones complaining about not being ab
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Now that is a nice clear thought that explains the point well.
I may have been caught up in the "make sense because it sounds too stupid" moment.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Knowingly leaving out the real inventors will get them more than just a slap on the wrist...
Re:How patently stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but only after years of legal battles. They'll need the first court to overturn the patent before they would be able to go back after them for damages. That's the problem here... Patents are being blindly issued, only looking to see if it was patented before. Then, it's up to the courts to determine the validity of the patent... That's horrible for the little guy, who chances are doesn't have the money to pay for the legal fees. So the only people the current patent system helps, are the big companies and the courts.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So the only people the current patent system helps, are the big companies and the courts.
Perhaps, but it would appear that the real problem is the incompetent assgobblins holed up in the US Patent and Trademark Orifice. I think a good first step would be to introduce compulsory IQ testing at the USPTO and lay off employees scoring below seventy, confiscating all of their square pegs and round holes. The remaining six patent analysts should be offered early retirement with full benefits and a conciliatory "years of service" plaque.
Re:How patently stupid. (Score:5, Interesting)
how patently fair--the patent system works for us (Score:3, Funny)
How patently fair. The intellectual property laws are out there for everyone to see and play by, and the public has benefited from this.
The process was apparently invented independently and simultaneously by two groups, only one of which (StemCells) filed a patent for it. If Schwartz had merely published his work first (or filed a patent for it first, which is tantamount to publishing), he could have blocked StemCell from obtaining a patent.
Schwartz chose instead to keep his technology secret. He lost his b
Re:how patently fair--the patent system works for (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
and the public has benefited from this.
Bullshit. The method was easy enough that multiple people have independently discovered it and it is now locked down so that nobody else can use it, at least without paying a worthless person who didn't even invent anything.
A simple, usable method for something was easily available and in use, now it is not. The public lost, and big.
People worldwide can now build on that technology, either through licensing of it or by trying to find work-arounds.
What kind of retard are you that you think it's going to be easier? The easy method is now taken, to work-around it they're going to have to needlessly complicate what should be
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Surely it's criminal perjury to falsely claim an invention in a patent. Assholes who hire thugs (lawyers) to intimidate people should be tried and punished.
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
So you could say that the company StemCells
::puts on sunglasses::
is causing division in this new industry?
::yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh::
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Let's just hope this phenomena of patents preventing stem-cell research becomes
QUIESCENT!
Well, all you true cell biologists out there appreciated that. Understood it a least. Look, it at least sorta made sense. [wikipedia.org] Don't judge me!
Re: (Score:2)
Will someone please explain this "sunglasses/yeah" meme?
Re: (Score:2)
Do a quick Google/Youtube search for David Caruso One Liners
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mznsEcZlM2I [youtube.com]
It's a recurring thing from CSI:Miami.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
One can always hope (Score:5, Funny)
Dead child brains?
Advanced medical research?
Idea-stealing profiteers and soulless lawyers, deserving of comeuppance?
I smell zombies!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I was actually thinking that it's the sort of research that could go incredibly wrong after they realized that they used the brain of somebody named Abby Normal.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Dr. Frankenstein: [To Igor] Igor, may I speak to you for a moment?
Igor: Of course.
Dr. Frankenstein: Sit down, won't you?
Igor: Thank you. [Igor sits on the floor]
Dr. Frankenstein: No no, up here.
Igor: Thank you. [Igor sits on a chair]
Dr. Frankenstein: Now... that brain that you gave me... was it Hans Delbruck's?
Igor: [Crosses arms] No.
Dr. Frankenstein: [Holds up hand] Ah. Good. Uh... would you mind telling me... whose brain... I did put in?
Igor: And you won't be angry?
Dr. Frankenstein: I will not be angry.
Ig
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Even better, I found a youtube clip of it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOe_4mgmyyA [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Failure of self-restraint (Score:3, Funny)
I know this is a serious topic, but... I... can't resist....
BRAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIINNNNSSSS!!!
Prior art? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Prior art? (Score:5, Insightful)
They still have to go to court to get it invalidated, though.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I saw a similar story (though of a much smaller scale). A tow-truck towed the wrong car, badly, and then abandoned it ruined on the side of the road when the error was discovered. By the time the owner found their vehicle a few hours later the towing company was dissolved. When the show investigated the owner had had many such companies.
This is why I advocate removing the so-called corporate veil. I feel that unless you actively pursue honest dealings in your company (forward all transactions to auditors, a
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
RTFA
StemCells is part of Stanford and were the first to create this technique
Re:Prior art? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The article implies that it was lack of initiative by Salk Institute that allowed StemCells to secure a patent on the technique
You have to know that patenting a process internationaly costs around $100K
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
This may seem obvioud to you and me, but many people don't get it. Stem cell research has the potential to CURE many medical problems. That's CURE, as in permanently fix them. Most of "Big Pharma" makes most of their revenue from the boat load of maintenance medications that they ship out every day to TREAT THE SYMPTOMS of the many "chronic" and "incurable" diseases that are out there. My dad has taken a handful of pills every day of his life for the last 20 years to keep the prostate cancer that he go
Re: (Score:2)
Where in the article does it say that?
Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine Institute at Stanford != Palo Alto biotech company StemCells
Sure, Dr Weissman is a member of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Boards of StemCells.
Sure, Dr Weissman is the Director of the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine.
But, they aren't mutually inclusive.
Re: (Score:2)
Two small changes from what you wrote, but critical. Prior art must be public and predate patent filings (not necessarily predate claims).
Re: (Score:2)
As many as it takes to find it if it exists. But the bill should be footed by the person applying for the patent, not by the taxpayer.
As a side benefit, forcing the person to apply to foot the bill might just slow this "Try for a patent on EVERYTHING!!!!" mania way down. You'd see people thinking very hard about whether it's worthwhile to apply for a patent, with the possible risk of spending tens
Re: (Score:2)
That is meaningless rethoric. No matter how carefully you've searched through all existing publications from the entire recorded human history, it's always possible that you'd find something if you simply searched again. Since there's no upper bound to how many times you should check, there's no upper bound to how much money you can spend searching.
Publish Owners Names (Score:2)
This could probably be resolved by publishing the names of those responsible for StemCells far and wide.
Re:Publish Owners Names (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.stemcellsinc.com/company/management.html [stemcellsinc.com]
http://www.stemcellsinc.com/company/executiveofficers.html [stemcellsinc.com]
http://www.stemcellsinc.com/company/scientificfounders.html [stemcellsinc.com]
Re:Publish Owners Names (Score:5, Insightful)
A guy with a Barret M107, a handful of .50 BMG bullets with "for this patent bullshit" engraved on them and an escape helicopter would help, too.
Every time I read about scumbags like this, I'm more and more convinced that this is indeed the only way.
Re:Publish Owners Names (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, yeah, because after choosing to kill a bunch of people (well, assholes, but still) really I would totally be stopped by the fact that my specific preferred gun type is outlawed in the area where killing must take place.
Yes judge, I killed these 20 motherfuckers with an illegal weapon. I was going to kill them with a legal one, but decided to be an outlaw instead.
Re: (Score:2)
It does nothing to prevent this kind of issue.
It would not change the greed that prevents research from progressing.
Even if the owners were "removed" from the mater by a concerned psychopathy the patents would still exist and someone else would try to profit from them.
Patent reform, only real solution.
Re:here you go (Score:5, Informative)
'Tis good to be a patent troll
Why do we have patents on life-saving techniques? Can you imagine if there was a patent on washing your hands or stitching a wound?
Re:here you go (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't often work that way in practice. Patents are used to prevent competition instead of encouraging it, and licensing fees are used to determine who can and who cannot practically work with the technology. It's yet another case where the basic idea was sound but the implementation is lacking. A major issue has been that the scientific and corporate landscape has changed significantly over time, while the patent system has not adapted adequately.
Re: (Score:2)
If you tell people your snake oil kills HIV, and you have a patent on snake oil, and using snake oil to kill HIV, and dozens of other things, then you can charge "licensing" fees for people that want to use it. You just made it impossible for any researcher to disprove any of your claims, except by statistics, which would take YEARS to get enough numbers to show significance. (if you release those numbers at all!)
The value of defensive patents. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a great example of why defensive patents are necessary. The inventor can obtain the patents, then grant anyone a free, perpetual license to use the technology. Hopefully, the doctor will win the lawsuit based on his work in creating the process but it's pretty crazy that it's not certain that he can win unless his creative process was public enough to constitute prior art.
Re:The value of defensive patents. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps. But that would require a comprehensive change of the patent laws of the United States. Over-patenting can be done without getting all the politicians together.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The value of defensive patents. (Score:4, Informative)
So it seems that both inventions were made at the same time, independently. In that case, either party may file for and be awarded the patent in the US [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The solutions here
The solution here is not to allow monopoly rights at all. If there is a desperate desire to divert money towards specific fields or specific holders of certain papers, then just outright pay them from whatever public purse whose politicos they control, and leave the actual economy and business of getting jobs done alone.
Patents and other IPR seems like a good idea to some because their costs are not accounted for, but there is no macroeconomic difference between the privatized taxation rig
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A 20 year patent seems ridiculous when product lifecycles and discoveries are moving much more quickly.
Definitely. In some industries -- practically anything electronics-based, for example -- a five year patent would probably be excessive. Patents would be a lot more productive if they were scaled to the rate of change in their industry, and perhaps more importantly, could be invalidated if it was shown that a particular patent was causing irreparable harm to individuals, as might be the case where someone is denied medical care as a result.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm doing PhD work at a very large US research university. Our patent portfolio goes back something like 80 years, and the money from licensing those patents was invested back into the research endowment. Today, we can fund thousands of graduate researchers due to that research endowment, all built on the money from licensing stuff discovered here.
I us
Re:The value of defensive patents. (Score:5, Insightful)
How nice that they're allowed to spend ten to twenty thousand dollars applying for a patent that they don't intend to use. All in an effort to prevent what is basically being blackmailed by a company that has not only stolen your ideas from you, but also from everyone else who would do work in the field. What a wonderful, effective system we have.
Re: (Score:2)
That's modern patent law for you. There's a reason why most patent-holding trusts are owned by lawyers.
"Hey nice idea there, it'd be a shame if something unfortunate happened wouldn't it?"
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Coincidentally, the Salk Institute was founded by Jonas Salk [wikipedia.org], the saint-like figure who developed the polio vaccine in the 1950s and then intentionally did not patent it.
Research = Noncommercial (Score:5, Interesting)
You can go tinker with your car and fabricate a new intake manifold on your own to make it go faster, and not be afraid of being sued for patent infringement because you used some company's design for an intake manifold. When you start racing professionally with that car seeking sponsorships and purses, then you've committed patent infringement.
Re: (Score:2)
"...and sell these renewing stem
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Research = Noncommercial (Score:5, Funny)
Salk sells stem cells by the sea shore?
Re: (Score:2)
[citation needed]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You are not a lawyer (and neither am I). Granting patents is one of congress's 18 enumerated powers. Congress can grant patents that have nothing to do with commerce. In fact, patent law spells out four exclusive rights the patent holder has. A patent holder can stop other people from:
the product or process that is described in the patent claims. There does not need to be any co
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I've been publicly flagellating myself for years. And it WORKS. Since I started, we have had ZERO hurricanes here in Iowa.
Re:ah, thank goodness (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Well the Embryonic Stem-Cell debate (which isn't what this is about) is what there is debate about, because in order to get these stem-cells you need to terminate the fetus, which is a valid moral debate without thumping the bible, because the PEOPLE who wrote the bible never even considered about thinking things to that detail. Terms of Patents just because they are protecting their patient it doesn't mean they are a Patent Troll. A lot of this type of stuff we really need a good debate on it, without fi
Become part of the brain drain. (Score:4, Interesting)
You can't buy lab equipment since in the West that would make you a drug maker or a terrorist. [slashdot.org]
You can't create innovative software that does something better than an established market, because you're infringing on a patent. (The whole MPEG-LA thing...)
You can't grow one of the most useful plants known to man, because someone might ingest its bud and receive pleasure from it.
Honestly, Just move to another country that doesn't respect the US patents and start saving lives. I'm sure India would love to have your expertise. There is also the United Arab Emirates, and the other Oil producing nations that are actively building research facilities to help them compete when the oil runs out.
hyperbole (Score:2, Insightful)
I used to think statements like this were hyperbole but now it seems an unavoidable conclusion. There was a time when America, and "the West" in general, were animated by a respect for science in and of itself.
Now there is something deeply broken in our country, it's as if there has been a kind of fundamental rejection of the concept of progress as one of the central aspects of our national identity. The idea that together we can make the future better than the present has seemingly been supplanted by autho
I am in Canada... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The law that bothers me that I have the best chance of changing is the blue law in my county. I would love to go to the Cantina on Sunday after mowing the lawn and enjoying a Dos Equis or Corona; but I can't buy alcohol in my county on Sunday. That would be the first law I wish was changed and I could actively do something about getting it changed. In the mean time I can just drive 20 min nort
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Lamb is watching (Score:2)
Medical Patents (Score:2, Troll)
Besides, if you didn't invent it, screw off.
Re:Medical Patents (Score:5, Insightful)
Double edged sword. It can take decades of time and millions upon millions to spit out one thing useful. Patents give return on investment.
I'd love research done for research's sake too, but pragmatism has this nasty habit of beating the snot out of idealism.
However...
Besides, if you didn't invent it, screw off.
Damn right. StemCells needs to be staplegunned to the wall for this crap...as well as the Patent Office being held liable too, since someone didn't do their prior art research.
More name publishing (Score:2)
http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/stemcell/researcher/Irving_Weissman/
irv@stanford.edu
Admin. aide: ljquinn@stanford.edu, 650-723-6520
Patent, Publish or Keep a Secret (Score:4, Insightful)
Good, objective scientific press... (Score:2)
As for the people that donated their dead child's brain to research, those valuable stem cell cultures have been kept in storage instead of being disseminated to research labs (who desperately need them) across the country.
Gotta love some good hyperbole. Not only are they evil corporations, but they are after the brains of dead children!
Patent troll? I think so. (Score:3, Interesting)
Executive summery, fourth paragraph:
"We have over forty issued U.S. patents, plus foreign equivalents to some fourteen of our U.S. patents and applications, for a total of over one hundred and seventy individual patents worldwide."
This company is clearly a patent troll, NOT a technology company. Shame shame shame.
Patent Legal Requirements (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What about the one where you had to create a physical model of it to fit in a 1'x1'x1' cube?
StemCells Inc. will probably regret this (Score:2)
This patent troll has over-extended itself: the researchers will be able to prove their prior-art research and at the end of the day, the StemCells inc. patent will be invalidated - and they have nobody else but themselves to blame.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is all well and fine, but in the meantime research is put on hold and the fraudsters (let's be blunt, that's what these guys are) may lose the patent but will suffer nothing else from what amounts to the IP equivalent of forging bad checks. This company is hardly the first. Probably the most famous patent con artists were Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, both of which have, ironically, come to represent the towering achievers of the modern patent system.
Document inventions (Score:2)
I have been told to document all inventions we come up with at work, even if they are something we would prefer one of our vendors to implement, because if we don't, another vendor could claim it is their IP and keep our vendor from using it.
Re:prior art? (Score:4, Insightful)
dissolve as in eventually have a judge rule that the patent isn't valid? As the article points out, CHOC now has to go to court to get that handled. While the patent may
be invalid because of prior art it still takes courts and lawyers and dockets and paper to make this situation "right." What I don't understand is that if there's no
profit motive on the part of CHOC, they're doing research, why they're being prohibited from using the technique anyway? I guess it's like patenting a shovel, if anybody digs
a hole can the patent holder prohibit you from having a swimming pool?
Re:prior art? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you assume there has to be a profit motive in order to run amok of patents?
Research exemption (Score:4, Informative)
He didn't assume it, he asked about it.
And may have been thinking about the 271(e)(1) exemption or "Hatch-Waxman exemption".
Re:prior art? (Score:4, Informative)
The word you're looking for is "afoul". Though you did conjure up an interesting image.
Re: (Score:2)
Adding injury to insult, I believe that patent litigation is even more expensive than most court proceedings.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess it's like patenting a shovel, if anybody digs
a hole can the patent holder prohibit you from having a swimming pool?
Only if the swimming pool requires a shovel to build. You'll still be allowed to have a plastic kiddy pool, or you can dig the hole for the swimming pool with a stick. If you use a shovel, though, you have to pay the shovel man.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The article doesn't say whether the original inventors published. If a technique can't be found in a literature search, I'd be surprised if it's considered prior art.
If the original inventors try to win on the grounds of priority, didn't it change a while ago from first-to-invent to first-to-file?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This happens a lot. The sticking point is often that the patent owner offers the research lab a license to use their technology, but the lab has to sign an agreement to turn over the rights to all the commercially useful results of the lab's research to the patent holder. Often the agreement is so onerous, the researchers refuse to sign.
With the BRCA gene patent that was recently overturned, the lab could do research with the BRCA test for free, but if they found out one of their subjects was positive for t
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It cannot really be fixed.
1) The assesor of the value of a patent have an interest to accept any patents because it makes money for them
2) the non profit loophole is useless, because the non profit entity could not do anything with the results, not even give it away for free, the only thing they could do is to give it to the "holder(s)"
moreover defining what is non profit and for profit is in practice impossible
3) in all case the guy with much money for it's lawyers and nothing