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:It's not a patent (Score:5, Interesting)
The sequence is data. I don't think patents cover data. You could modify the data, but a patent claim is dubious. Working pi to infinity-2 is data. It's not patentable. My DNA, your DNA, is not patentable. Mod them uniquely, and you're Monsanto.
Cuts both ways (Score:5, Interesting)
If they're claiming the rights to the virus, they have to take the wrongs along with it. Hold them accountable for the damage the virus does, up to and including loss of human life.
Re:Bill them then... (Score:5, Interesting)
the Dutch team has not patented the viral genetic sequence but has placed it under an MTA, which requires sample recipients to contractually agree not to develop products or share the sample without the permission of Erasmus and the Fouchier laboratory
They are not looking to be paid for their work in sequencing the virus, but to get a cut of any treatment that may be developed by controlling who is allowed to develop a treatment. Why, because they received a sample first? Forget debating the so-called intellectual property rights aspect of this. Regardless of how Saudi Arabia screwed up, this is a serious threat to public health. Currently in Saudi Arabia, and potentially the rest of the planet. I don't know what you'd have to do under Dutch law, but if it were in the US it should be seized under eminent domain. Before some "property rights" fanatic gets their panties in a twist, I'll say the Supreme Court's decision in Kelo v. City of New London was absurd. Transferring private property from one private owner to another isn't a public purpose. However dealing with anything that's a threat to the public health is very much a public purpose.