Cancer Mouse Not Patentable in Canada 420
Proaxiom writes "The Globe and Mail is reporting the Supreme Court of Canada ruled today that OncoMouse, the so-called 'Harvard Mouse' that is especially prone to cancer, cannot be patented under Canadian law. The hapless rodent still enjoys patent protection in the U.S., Japan and much of Europe. So there is at least one place where higher life forms cannot be patented, but I am not familiar enough with the intricacies of international intellectual property treaties to figure out the consequences of the discrepancy. I'm sure countless IANAL's will be willing to offer opinions."
Mouse Smuggling (Score:2)
Re:Mouse Smuggling (Score:4, Funny)
Mice will go to another border and IANAL, but its seems to me that it's perfectly legal - they will just migrate!
Re:Mouse Smuggling (Score:2)
Re:Mouse Smuggling (Score:2)
Re:Mouse Smuggling (Score:5, Funny)
I think we'll be smuggling them into the USA, not the other way around. Throwing in a free Generic Cancer Mouse with each pack of smuggled smokes the scientists import for their cancer studies.
I'm picturing little wooden-legged mice saying "Arrrr!"...
Re:Mouse Smuggling (Score:4, Funny)
This means that, since it facilitates the theft of intellectual property, cheese is now illegal under the DMCA.
Re:Mouse Smuggling (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mouse Smuggling (Score:3, Insightful)
If the mice are not patentable in Canada, then anyone can genetically produce them, or however they feel like it. This would lead to lower costs of cancer prone mice... so Canada could have many exported to the U.S.... If they don't die of cancer first.
Re:Mouse Smuggling (Score:3, Informative)
As they violate a U.S. patent.
So, companies can do research with them cheaper in Canada and the results CAN be used in the U.S.
But the mice cannot be exported to ny country where the patent stands.
Re:Mouse Smuggling (Score:3, Insightful)
If someone in the US breeds mice, and by accident a strain happens to have similar or identical DNA sequences which give it the big C then is this a violation of patent? And what if the genes have never been sequenced, it's just known that they get cancer and are sold for research? If retrospectively we find out that they violate patents, it would see a bit stupid that the mice breeding (under only some human control and with the inbuilt unpredictability of fertilisation and DNA replication) could be illegal.
Patenting nature just seems very wrong to me. Just because I decode some of nature's best work shouldn't mean that I own it.
Re:Mouse Smuggling (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mouse Smuggling (Score:3, Funny)
A bigger question- can I patent the process of smuggling OncoMice across the border?
So appropriate... (Score:2)
I feel better about world problems now!
My karma for QOTD must be well in focus today, because I loaded up the Will Shatner interview and then Wil Wheaton's profile [slashdot.org] and on both of them, I got:
He's dead, Jim.
Cancer mouse? (Score:2, Funny)
Higher lifeform? (Score:3, Funny)
Prone to Cancer = higher life form? You're views are ass backward, friend.
Re:Higher lifeform? (Score:5, Funny)
But wouldn't it be something if humans were patentable? I'd take out patents George W. Bush, Carrot Top, Rush Limbaugh, and all the members of N'Sync and The Backstreet Boys just to prevent anyone from making any more of them.
Re:Higher lifeform? (Score:5, Funny)
Next news flash: Cancer Man not patentable. Trademarked, maybe.
Re:Higher lifeform? (Score:2)
BTW, why did they stop calling him "Cancer Man" and start calling him "Cigarette-Smoking Man"? Was it some Big-Tobacco conspiracy we should know about?
Re:Higher lifeform? (Score:2, Funny)
Ahem. That's bass ackward, my friend.
Cool (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if this could cause U.S.-Canadian tensions? The IP people in the states are riding high these days.
Re:Cool (Score:2)
But this is what a "God" is: a simplified explanation of things we don't understand -- the lazy man's way of saying "I don't know".
Re:Cool (Score:2)
Re:Cool (Score:2)
I thought it was politics? Hmm, maybe this is a common tactic.
Re:Cool (Score:2)
Re:Cool (Score:2)
Re:Cool (Score:2, Insightful)
This is just disrespectful and ignorant. First, God doesn't own intellectual property. There are certainly ethical problems with the IP of any living being, but it is not because God had the idea first. Second, God is NOT the lazy man's anything. He is not the explanation of things we don't understand. Admittedly, it is impossible to wholly (homophonic pun) know or understand God, but he is made known to many through providence. Faith is not laziness, and God and Science are not mutually exclusive.
Sorry for the diatribe, but it is only hapless clarification.
Re:Cool (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Cool (Score:4, Interesting)
I think you meant to say more tensions.
The US puts tarrifs on Canada's softwood lumber and talks about doing the same to its wheat. Sure they signed free trade agreements with Canada, but that doesn't mean they can't violate them whenever its convenient for them. And what can Canada do about this? Nothing, really. Especially since Bush is far more concerned about Mexico than he is with the USA's biggest trading partner, Canada.
Immediately after 9/11 Canadian firefighters, resue workers, ambulance crews, etc went to Manhatten to help. And Canada sent troops to help in Afghanistan, four of whom were killed because of the criminal negligence of two US pilots (according to the findings of both Canadian and US inquiries). Was any of this reported in the US? Not really, except for an American governor's fund raisers to help out the poor scape-goated American pilots. I wouldn't be complaining about this lack of recognition in the US for this good, neighbourly help provided by Canada, expect for the way that American officials and their media are more than willing to pounce on the smallest (or even non-existant) negative things. For example, after 9/11 a lot was made by top US officials about how lax Canadian security was and how this allowed the terrorists to enter the US via Canada, in spite of the fact that there was no evidence that any of the terrorists in fact entered from Canada. I fear to think what the reaction would be if some terrorists do enter the US via Canada and do complete a horrible attack - the Americans will have their proof of Canada's irresponsibly lax security, even though terrorists are clearly just as able to enter the US directly.
Also, consider the recent case of a non-elected Canadian government person, just a PR person for the Prime Minister, who in a private conversation with a reporter called President Bush "a moron". This comment got published, and within a few days CNN was talking about it with the caption "Canada: A threat?" on the screen while making much of the remark of a "senior official in the Canadian government".
I guess my point in all this is that, yes, if the US government doesn't like this patent decision to a sufficent degree, than you can expect to hear a lot in the US media about Canada's 'policy of flagrently disregarding US patent law'. Most likely you just won't hear anything about this in the US media, since most people won't care about this patent law/biology type of news.
Re:Cool (Score:3, Insightful)
The Times published a map a week or two ago showing int'l reserves and annual production by country -- wish I could find it, they did a nice job. Iraq has 1/10 of the reserves, and Saudi Arabia far more -- all easily extracted oil. (Another DOE chart [doe.gov].) Kuwait has about as much as Iraq, or Iran, and so on. Here [bp.com] is some of the data. Canada, like the U.S., doesn't have that long a future at current extraction rates. The USGS also has a detailed int'l map [usgs.gov] of projected reserves.
The Middle East, meanwhile, has a staggering amount of oil untapped. It makes me wonder why Iraq's Hussein doesn'y just kick back and get rich, buying the affection of his people. He has the oil. There's something missing, perhaps just his sanity.
The U.S. needs some long-term planning. One of these days we should just invade an oil-rich country and make a colony or something out of it. It fact, I think such plans are in the works as we speak.
Obviously I have an opinion or two... none of this means Canada is irrelevant, it's just too peaceful for us to get all worked up about and bomb or something. Disappointed?
Karmic suicide (Score:4, Funny)
Mainly because there are no higher forms of life there.
Sorry, had to say it, but I actually love Canada.
Read the judgement here: (Score:5, Informative)
Mouse not patentable, but Canola is? (Score:5, Informative)
That's completely different (Score:2)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that this is the same country in which the farmer was sued for using seeds from last year's canola crop, rather than buying them (again) from Monsanto.
These are two entirely different things... Harvard doesn't have near as much money as Monsanto!Re:That's completely different (Score:2)
Re:Mouse not patentable, but Canola is? (Score:5, Informative)
Monsanto is being counter-sued for contaminating his crop. If there is any justice, they will have to cough up some big $$$ for it.
I too thought the Canadian justice system wouldn't be as bad as our own, but it goes to show you how fscked up any government can be when idiots are making the decisions (Go USA!!!)
Not copyright.. patent. (Score:5, Informative)
And it's not that far fetched that they won; it wasn't an "accident". The guy KNEW it was monsanto's seed. It wasn't forced on him. He knew they had a patent on it as well. He took the gamble.
What you have to realize is that the legal system is not as convoluted in Canada. Though this time, the guy might have been found to be doing something wrong, under slightly different circumstances, monsanto would lose (say, if the guy really had no idea it had happened).
You can't just compare one ruling and declare the Canadian justice system to be as screwed up as the US. Remember, we have 10x less population, over a larger area, and a system that is *FAR* more flexible and less complex than the US system. Not everything is Black & White in the Canadian legal system, nor do we pretend it is.
Re:Not copyright.. patent. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not copyright.. patent. (Score:3)
The arguement is that they weren't accidentally bred, and he used the particular characteristics of the genetic modification to his benefits (special pesticides).
I think his defense would have been much stronger if he grew the canola as normal canola, and didn't take advantage of the GM properties.
Re:Not copyright.. patent. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes it was. Whether he was aware of the way in which his plants had been changed is irrelevant. He didn't ASK to have them changed. It happened through the actions of other forces not under his control (his neighbors, the wind, and Monsanto. The plants in question were HIS OWN. Monsanto ended up vandalizing his crop, so to speak.
If I steal a can of spray paint and use it to spray grafitti on your house, you shouldn't be obligated to pay the store for the paint should you choose to keep the grafitti in place.
"10x less population" would only make mathematical sense if it was possible for Canada to have a negative population. (With Canada having negative 9x as many people as the US.) I'm not even sure what a negative population would mean (people made of antimatter?) I think you meant "One tenth the population", which isn't the same thing.
And the population density has nothing to do with why Canada's legal system has more grey areas. Canada's legal system is more grey because it is more directly derived from the British system, which is more grey than the US system. And Britain most certainly isn't less densely populated than the US.
Re:Not copyright.. patent. (Score:3, Informative)
The disagreement wasn't over the patent, the disagreement was over a fact. The judge felt the defendant was lying. Again, the defendant didn't lose because of a legal technicality -- He lost because the judge thought he was lying.
"...Justice MacKay concluded that Mr. Schmeiser's arguments were implausible. "4 76.htm [seedquest.com]
http://www.seedquest.com/News/releases/2002/may/4
No, he DIDN'T know. (Score:4, Insightful)
Experts in the subject already insist that it's virtually if not utterly impossible to find canola, corn, and soybean seed without traces of (patented) genetically-modified genes in them. Monsanto, however, is the big offender, in that it ruthlessly goes after people who wind up with "their" proprietary genes in crops. It's also totally possible to find ultra-hybridized varieties of seed containing more than one company's proprietary genes. That comes from natural cross-polination, and other forms of non-crossbreeding contamination, not theft.
All of which just blatantly shows why this Supreme Court decision is a good idea, and why Mr. Schmeiser should get Monsanto to pay through the nose for wrecking his organic hybrid canola variant with their genetically modified strain. I wonder if this court case will help?
Re:Mouse not patentable, but Canola is? (Score:4, Interesting)
The unpleasant thing about the Monsanto case was that there was no evidence that the farmer had done anything wrong. It could have been pollen drifting in from the neighbors fields. (A bit unlikely, but not disproven.) The hypothesis that justified the ruling was that some seed had spilled by the roadside, and that he had planted that. Could be.
But it was a civil suit, and if Canada is like the US, then civil suits are decided on the perponderance of the evidence. And it was reasonable that he had reason to believe that his grain was the Monsanto variation. What isn't reasonable was that his claim that his own strain had been corrupted by foreign pollen wasn't considered relevant. He hadn't been intending to sell the strain, so it was given a value of nothing, even though he had been selecting it for decades.
Well, officially it was decided on the basis of (I think) patent law. But I think what really happened was that the judge decided that he swiped some seed, and looked for a reason to find him at fault.
Re:Mouse not patentable, but Canola is? (Score:2, Informative)
I don't know that I'd agree with "no evidence". The farmer himself testified that when he suspected there was glyphosate resistant canola growing in part of one of his fields, he then went and sprayed a larger area with glyphosate. He then took the seeds from the plants that survived the spraying and planted his entire next year's crop with them. This established that the presence of the genetically modified canola growing in his fields the next year -- which is the crop that was found to infringe the patent, not the crop from the previous year -- was planted deliberately and with full knowledge of its glyphosate resistant properties. I can't see how one could put any construction on the farmer's behaviour, as he himself described it, other than that he wanted to farm the genetically modified canola but didn't want to pay the licence fees.
Re:Mouse not patentable, but Canola is? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you agree that that's right, then you are agreeing that it's okay for Monsanto to steal ownership ofa portion of a farmer's crop.
The mouse isn't patented... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The mouse isn't patented... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the mouse is. Specifically, the patent covers the offspring of the mice as well. Indeed, it ALSO covers the offspring of other animals that were bred with the mice.
Read the article.
_Am
Re:The mouse isn't patented... (Score:2)
1) Create and patent gene.
2) Introduce gene into DNA of patent lawyers world-wide for the next 60 years.
3) ???
4) Profit!
But, not in Canada (Score:2)
If you want, you can also look here [mybc.com] for a local article on the topic. The methodologies etc are patentable, the life form is not (in Canada).
Really, it should be this way in the rest of the world too, patenting the methologies and general process (not the lifeform) should be quite enough to prevent against scientific pilfering.
No Direct Consequences (Score:4, Informative)
The most it may do would be to keep alive the debate over whether higher life forms can actually be patented. And then, of course, there's the possibility of companies moving research in this area to Canada to avoid licensing costs.
All of that said, I feel sorry for the mouse.
So, if these mice breed... (Score:4, Funny)
"Congratulations, it's a boy! That'll be $1.50."
Oh boy! (Score:5, Funny)
Rah Rah! (Score:2, Insightful)
Warning: The contents of this post are non-flamable.
Weeeelllll... (Score:2)
Gene research is still pricy. Eventually scientists will just dial what they need into the Mouse-o-matic(TM) to get what they want -- and ironically Canada will give it a patent -- but for now, I don't know. (I said way up top that patenting animals weirds me out.)
My personal preference would be gov't funding for this sort of thing, but with great caution so we don't turn it into a big socialist mess like in... never mind. Anyway, it comes down to money one way or another.
This is really important. (Score:5, Funny)
Imagine what it will be like when the world is flooded with cancerous Canadian mice. They'll be dirt cheap and there isn't likely to be any quality control so, you might get stuck with a non-cancerous mouse, after paying for a cancerous mouse.
I telling you, you are much better off getting your cancerous mice from the Patent licensed sources like Glaxo Welcom. Cheap Canadian cancerous mice will be your undoing!
Were they patenting the wrong thing? (Score:2)
If its the former, I agree. If its the latter, I'm not so sure.
But hell, sure is nice for my country not to act 'me too!!' on the issue.
Two patents, one yes, one no (Score:3, Informative)
The cancer prone mouse patent was denied.
The method for making the cancer prone mouse was granted.
Re:Were they patenting the wrong thing? (Score:4, Informative)
It is a decision about the mouse itself. The method of producing the (first?) mouse still may be patentable in Canada, as, perhaps, it should be. However, the normal process of producing a new mouse from a pair of existing mice is not and should not be patentable anywhere, because it is a natural process, and if you (or your patent office) read the fine print of various patent laws, they specifically exclude natural processes. The Supreme Court of Canada is merely affirming the law that other country's patent offices have ignored.
New, from Mattel! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:New, from Mattel! (Score:2)
Pinky and the Meds (Score:5, Funny)
"The same thing we do every night, Pinky...trying not to get sick from our chemo."
Re:Pinky and the Meds (Score:2)
This ruling makes sense (Score:2, Interesting)
This ruling makes a lot of sense. A mouse that is prone to cancer is far too nonspecific for a workable patent. A mouse, for example, cannot be patented in itself (the question of who has invention rights to that is larger than any patent office can easily decide!). A likelihood of developing something, in the absence of any particulars, would also be silly to patent.
When I read this, I thought, "Gee, I know some families who are very prone to cancer (presumably due to shared genes and shared environment). So can Harvard researchers patent the Joneses?" I sure as hell don't think so. Of course, for the US patent office, these sorts of patents are just par for the course.
Re:This ruling makes sense (Score:2)
Some court interpretations of current law [fdli.org] say that they sure as hell do.
Uh, no (Score:2)
They'll never make money with these names (Score:2)
I don't think Disney has a thing to worry about.
Time to add Canada to the Axis of Evil! (Score:2)
I'm sure the IP happy 4 letter Orgs are talking with Bush right now. Watch for an invasion force to start massing on the US northern border with the intent of bringing these terrorists to justice!
How can life be patentable? (Score:2)
I understand that some researchers spent a lot of time in creating that mouse, whether through selective breeding, gene therapy or whatever. However, what we have now is a self-replicating organism. The patent process was never intended nor should it ever be used to prevent organisms from self-replicating.
I don't know what the right solution is to encourage future developments in this field, but to say that anyone or anything owns the genetic code of an organism goes into dangerous terrority. It isn't like they created the genes, they just studied them and noted an interesting characteristic.
The truth.com (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The truth.com (Score:2)
What?! as if cigarettes weren't bad enough now canada has to worry about kids smoking mice?!
Manufacture? (Score:2)
This interpretation potentially disallows all patents on future gene therapies, potentially genetically modified crops, and even down to the level of bacterial engineering for anything from drug production to oil eating bacteria to scavenge oil spills. My guess is that this myopic interpretation is going to cause lots of legal problems for many companies big and small and will eventually get reversed when they can get either a lawyer or an consultant to properly brief the court on why "manufacture" can apply to bioengineering and genetics.
Canola oil seed different from a mouse (Score:5, Informative)
"Although Parliament enacted special legislation for the protection of plant breeders, it did not address other higher life forms. Moreover, the passage of the Plant Breeders' Rights Act demonstrates that mechanisms other than the Patent Act may be used to encourage inventors to undertake innovative activity in the field of biotechnology.[...] If a special legislative scheme was needed to protect plant varieties, a subset of higher life forms, a similar scheme may also be necessary to deal with the patenting of higher life forms in general. It is beyond the competence of this Court to address in a comprehensive fashion the issues associated with the patentability of higher life forms."
In other words, patents related to plants have their own set of laws. They were not meant to include animals and the Supreme Cort does not want to take the responsibility of something that Parliament should do.
At least, that is my interpretation
Well... (Score:2)
No comment.
Patenting similar animals? A little sticky. (Score:2)
The issue was sticky enough. Then they had to push it further by trying to patent other animals with similar traits? No wonder it was denied (at least in Canada). As a result, a media-storm ensued, and I'm sure that helped to influence the courts.
IP treaty law (Score:4, Informative)
This will become an issue as biotech organisms start appearing en masse (whenever that might be). Right now, there's no real incentive to produce, in Canada, nonpatented oncomice, simply because most of the countries to which you'd export (e.g., the U.S., Japan) would allow infringement suits. As the suite of gengineered organisms expands, however, expect a great deal of political and legal pressure for Canada to fall in line with the other states.
Re:IP treaty law (Score:2)
Is it just me, or does that sound like "fall into like with the other (United) states" as opposed to "the other (International) states"? I'm a paranoid Canadian, I know. But I get sick of my country being joked about as "the 51st state". Maybe I'm just being too sensitive, eh?
Re:IP treaty law (Score:2)
Perhaps there is a method to this madness... (Score:2)
Could Canada possibly be adopting Britan's pragmatic approach to biotechnology, with an "open source" twist?
Canada could become a hotbed of bio research if they didn't honor the patents of any bioengineered products worldwide. I hope they do this.
Genes, just like information, wants to be free.
IANAL, but not with mice (Score:2)
Takes all kinds I guess.
Can I patent StupidPeople... (Score:5, Funny)
Arguments against policy change? (Score:2, Interesting)
Patent infringement... (Score:2, Funny)
I wonder if I can patent greed.
a mouse without a patent (Score:5, Funny)
Other things Canada can't patent (Score:2)
Software that is full of bugs.
Moldy Cheese
Broken Dishes
Pen with no ink
Pre-Coastered CD-R's
Computers made by Packard Bell
Paypal
IBM Deskstar HDs
Burnt out light bulbs
Candy Wrappers
Vanilla Ice
Bottled Sewer Water
Slashdot Spellchecker.
Thanks, I *am* available as a consultant.
Some Legal Implications (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as the national treatement requirement goes, the only constraint on Candian law in this case is that, if Canadian courts reject such patent claims made by US citizens/corportations, then they must reject similar claims made by Canadian citizens/corportations.
In addition to the national treatment requirement, treaties have also tried to establish certain standards concerning the nature and terms of intellectual property rights, but these IP standards do not get down to the details of what can or cannot be patented. In general these IP standards have been designed to avoid all the really difficult questions about intellectual property, and they tend to be weakly enforced in any case.
So, as far as these additional IP standards go, it is highly unlikely that this Candian court ruling will conflict with any of them.
However, the fact that Canadian courts have now taken up a position against this sort of patent makes it less likely that this sort of patent will ever make it into the IP standards established by *future* international treaties.
Re:Some Legal Implications (Score:5, Funny)
You spelled "Canadian" correctly only 3 out of 9 times! You're now qualified to work as a Slashdot editor!
Prior Art (Score:2)
With thanks to Al Fago
I finally figured it all out (Score:5, Funny)
This is probably why we don't have any of the music or movies from that era as well. They were covered by the MPAA (Movies and Pyramids Acrhitects Association) and the RIAA (Ra Is An Artist).
If this stuff keeps up, it won't be too many years until everything here will be forgotten as well, due to the fact that no one can say anything, do anything, or even think about anything.
Invention vs Discovery (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a big fan of the notion that there's a distinct if somewhat grey line between Invention and Discovery, and that only Invention should be patentable. Discovering a new species of mouse in the wild does not give one the right to patent it. Inventing a new species of mouse through genetic manipulation does, although it raises ethical questions, especially if applied to a more emotionally developed mammal like a dolphin, a dog, or a human.
RELATED stories - and Rodent Rights! (Score:3, Funny)
CBC's version of events [www.cbc.ca]
The mouse genome project - A success! [cbc.ca]
Let's Sing! (Score:5, Funny)
C-A-N C-E-R M-O-U-S-E. Cancer Mouse! CancerMouse.
We treat him with drugs and hope he doesn't die, die, die.
Patents & TMs in Canada (Score:5, Informative)
1) Medical procedures are not patentable. This is basically to prevent the formation of a monopoly on a life-saving procedure. (e.g., If someone invented a procedure to repair spinal cords, she couldn't patent it and charge a zillion dollars, because that would limit poor people's access to the technique.)
2) A life-saving drug (e.g., cure for cancer), if they're the only such life-saving drug available, is not patentable.
3) Some drug patents and trademarks seem to be quickly lost in Canada (while others are not). In the U.S., the trademark "Aspirin" has been lost to common use, so any generic manufacturer can claim that they make aspirin. Not so in Canada -- only Bayer can claim this trademark. In terms of patents, we have lots of generic drugs being manufactured that I don't think they can offer in generic form in the U.S. yet (e.g., generic forms of Reactine & Allegra). Not that I'm complaining -- our drugs are dirt cheap in comparison to what U.S. citizens pay (e.g., a month's supply of Claritin in the U.S. costs over $90 USD according to a recent Reuters article, but costs me only about $18 CAD -- this is due, in part of course, to the fact that it has been available over the counter here for some time
For more comparisons of patent law differences:
http://www.dww.com/articles/how_do_you.htm
-kris
wildly off-topic - Rat Patrol (Score:2)
The province of Alberta has a full-time Rat Patrol team [gov.ab.ca] who go around the provinces and kill rats. Alberta is rat free, and these guys drive around the borders with poison,
Some days I think this would be the perfect job.
How do you define "higher" life forms? (Score:2)
Or can we define it as "having the capability to scream [guntheranderson.com]"?
But did they listen to me? Nooooooo! (Score:3, Funny)
Patenting Life Forms (Score:3, Insightful)
I understand the motivation for this: companies who develop these "products" want to protect and insure a return on their investments. I think that it's OK to patent the *procedure* or *process* used to generate these things, but I don't like the precident set by corporations or individuals patenting what are essentially naturally-occuring things.
Think about it... suppose Glaxo finds a "cancer gene" which, perhaps, can be used to predict that someone with the gene will develop a particular form of cancer (I know that such things may already have been discovered). Suppose that I possess the gene. Now, if Glaxo patents this gene, they are essentially asserting intellectual property rights on part of my body, on my DNA. I really don't like even the idea of that. The ramifications and implications of this area of law, in my opinion, are still unclear and potentially frightening.
On a more general note, patent law is supposed to encourage innovation and development. However, increasingly, it's being used to enforce monopolies (look at Microsoft or Gemstar). And, in the area of health care and medicine, it often has the negative side-effect of pricing many people out of life-saving or even life-enhancing treatments and procedures.
In my humble lay-opinion, our (the US's) intellectual property laws are in dire need of some revision and rethinking, particularly in the biomedicine and information technologies realms. Patents should be issued more judiciously and circumspectly and should carry much shorter expiration dates. Once a company has earned back their development costs and made a modest profit, they should yield their technology to the public to encourage further development and growth and, particularly with respect to medical technology, to make their products accessible to people in a larger number of income and class brackets.
I'm not a socialist, and I generally don't approve of the government interfering in the private sector. On the other hand, I do believe that government should encourage personal and corporate responsibility. Biotech companies, obstensively, exist not to make billions of dollars in profits, but to save and improve lives. Intellectual Property laws can and should be used to encourage a greater balance between profit and public benefit.
Re:Patenting Life Forms (Score:5, Funny)
The rejected episode.. (Score:2)
Re:I'm missing the point (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Patenting a mouse?! (Score:2)
However, *I* see no arguments of patending a mice over than, say, Galloway cow. Anybody can get sperm/egg/calves and start their own breeding program, why should little white mice be any different?
J.
Re:In the shark (Score:2)