Never Mind the Epidemic, Who Gets Patent Rights For the Cure? 135
A virus that has so far killed nearly thirty people in seven countries faces a non-medical obstacle to treatment: Patents.
Reader Presto Vivace writes with this excerpt from the Council on Foreign Relations: "At the center of the dispute is a Dutch laboratory that claims all rights to the genetic sequence of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus [MERS-CoV]. Saudi Arabia's deputy health minister, Ziad Memish, told the WHO meeting that "someone"--a reference to Egyptian virologist Ali Zaki--mailed a sample of the new SARS-like virus out of his country without government consent in June 2012, giving it to Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam."
Re:Bill them then... (Score:5, Insightful)
RTFA. They didn't patent it, they're not blocking anyone. The problem is with Saudi-Arabia, not with the Dutch lab. The article is borderline slander, but the summary is outright misleading.
From the article:
"Eleven months ago, Zaki told the Guardian, he was called in as a consultant on a mysterious case in his Jeddah hospital. Zaki tried to identify the virus, but the patient died less than twenty-four hours after he received the sample. Soon, a second case came his way, and Zaki mailed a sample to his friend, Fouchier. Zaki sent a notice in September 2012 to ProMED, a disease alert system run by the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Under pressure from the Saudi government, Zaki's hospital in Jeddah fired him when the ProMED notice was posted, and he moved to Cairo."
Note the timing: he was fired after the alert got out that there was a problem.
Without the Dutch lab, there would have been no sequence and NO ALERT because the Saudi govt. was trying to keep it quiet. That was at a time that patients were already dying outside Saudi Arabia too. The whistleblower who saw two dead patients and a potential disaster and took action, is fired. Note that if they sent the virus to *ANYONE ELSE* the virus could have been sequenced a dozen times over, easily - it's not that hard. The problem isn't with a Dutch lab that asks for payment in return for results and a cut of the potential profit. The problem is with the Saudi government that fires people who actually try to alert the world.
Re:It's not a patent (Score:5, Insightful)
The article is completely and wildly off the mark, and the summary is confusing the issue even more, if that's even possible.
This is at least an improvement over the previous article on the same subject [slashdot.org], which didn't even identify which IP claims were causing problems. But I agree, there is some incredibly sloppy reporting going on here. I realize that the storyline of "evil Western profiteers kill people with patents" is very tempting for lazy journalists and activists, and there are genuine problems [wikipedia.org] with the patenting of gene sequences, but that's not even what's going on here. This is purely a case of bureaucratic infighting and ass-covering, and the article couldn't point to a single instance where Erasmus University actually prevented anyone from researching towards a cure.
Re:It's not a patent (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a patent It's a Material Transfer Agreement that means you agree to some restrictions including sharing / ceding patent rights. (That's OK, it's Timothy, we don't exactly expect accuracy here.)
I hate to be the first Slashdotter to defend our editors, but he didn't say "a patent". He said "obstacle to treatment: Patents". And in this case it's 100% right if you read carefully.
The Saudis don't want the material transferred from their country except by a special mechanism which guarantees them the Patent rights. That is slowing down the rate at which the virus gets to people. The lab which has a sample doesn't want to distribute it without special agreements about patents. Again, this slows down the transfer. If the lab was not motivated by patents then it could simply say "all patents based on this material must be shared freely and without patents", however they don't do that.
In all cases; if there were no potential future patents involved then the information could be shared easily and quickly. Patents and greed about them are the problem here.
Re:It's not a patent (Score:5, Insightful)
Fine, so pay them for their work.
Find out what the researchers and lab techs were being paid hourly, add up the amount of time they spent, add 10% for a reasonable profit and cut them a check.
They're already amortizing the equipment, so maybe kick in another 1 percent for the cost of electricity and space for the lab. Find out how much of the work was done at publicly-funded institutions and send the Dutch lab a bill for that.
Patents for gene sequences should not exist. They're going to cause problems far in excess of their value to society.
Re:Cuts both ways (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, the board, the shareholders and all C-level management should be held liable, personally.
When you weigh the number of problems that would be solved immediately if the principals in a corporation were held personally liable against the benefits to society to having principals be protected from liability behind a corporate shield, I think it would be pretty clear the personal liability should exist.
There would still be people willing to take the risk, since the rewards are great, but at least they'd have to give half a second to the consequences of their actions.