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:How patently stupid. (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.
Prior art? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Prior art? (Score:5, Insightful)
They still have to go to court to get it invalidated, though.
Re:The value of defensive patents. (Score:5, Insightful)
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: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: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.
Patent, Publish or Keep a Secret (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How patently stupid. (Score:3, Insightful)
Knowingly leaving out the real inventors will get them more than just a slap on the wrist...
Re:Prior art? (Score:5, Insightful)
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:The value of defensive patents. (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 rights of IPR and taxing and having the state pay out for per-patent use. Except, of course, it's much easier to say 'we're giving 20 years of monopoly rights to encourage innovation' than 'we're handing out X billions of which barely 20% is used for the purpose we intended'. And, of course, the fact that private monopolies seem to become even less efficient than (at least accountable) public monopolies.
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.
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 authoritarian greediness. Americans don't generally believe in improving the world, we have rejected the idea of the "common good".
The American project was founded on Enlightenment values, somewhere along the way we lost sight of those values and have drifted from their moral trajectory into a dystopia.
Re:How patently stupid. (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:StemCells Inc. will probably regret this (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.
Re:Prior art? (Score:3, Insightful)
huh? (Score:1, Insightful)
Your argument presupposes nationalism as an element of ideology.
Also, I believe the OP was suggesting that scientists who desire to engage in research unencumbered by the American insanity should work in those countries. It's not about ideology to them, it's about doing science. You seem to be suggesting that before these scientists can be scientists they must first become political revolutionaries. That sounds very nice and all, but it is a bit of an absurd proposition. Not to mention a tremendous misallocation of scientists. I say, if America and the West now value power, greed, and irrationalism more than progress then we should cheer the scientists on for their courage in advancing the cause of science by escaping their oppression.
I am in Canada... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How patently stupid. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Prior art? (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 got those two decades ago from coming back. Would have been a lot cheaper for him to have taken just a few magic blue pills to cure it once by straightening out the genes that make him have it in the first place. Same goes for AIDS / HIV patients. I've seen the cup fulls of pills they go through on a day to day basis to stay "healthy" or at least postpone the inevitable. If they found a way to kill or render ineffective HIV, then how much revenue would drug makers loose practically overnight?
There is NO LONG TERM MONEY to be made for drug companies in curing diseases. There IS a public health benifit to it though. Once governments see past their own politician's greed for being lobbied by these companies and start to promote university research at curing these diseases while being free of BS lawsuits like this impacting their work, medicine will stay where it has been for the last two decades, stagnated.
Re:How patently stupid. (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:Research = Noncommercial (Score:1, Insightful)
Nice try, but the Supreme Court already decided that one. Research is a commercial interest. See Madey V Duke.
Re:How patently stupid. (Score:1, Insightful)
The stupid ones are the hospital's lawyers. They should ignore the letter from StemCells. This isn't a court order, it is just a threatening letter.
If the hospital's work has no commercial value, the company isn't going to spend the time/money suing in federal court to stop them from.
Re:Research = Noncommercial (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 commercial activity involved.
Re:ah, thank goodness (Score:3, Insightful)