Patent Trolls In Biotechnology 50
GNUman writes "A news story in this week's Nature Journal talks about patent trolls attacking biotech companies. They cite a case in which the U.S. federal court of appeals upheld 'a patent that covered the idea of trying to link infant vaccination with later immune disorders.' The news story also references an interesting article from researchers at Boston University School of Law (Bessen, James E. et al, 2011, 'The Private and Social Costs of Patent Trolls'), in which they analyze the effect of litigation on the wealth of the defendants via their stock's value before and after litigation, and given that such loss minimally translates into an increment in the wealth of the inventor, they determine that patent litigation harms society and removes incentives for innovation."
Re:Monsanto anyone? (Score:4, Informative)
Most notably, Monsanto has sued farmers because their crops (which were not Monsanto seeds) reproduced with pollen blown in from the neighbor's farm. Apparently, patent law trumps laws of nature, at least when it comes to assessing damages, because Monsanto has won those cases.
This despite the farmer's counterpoint that Monsanto's terminator gene was contaminating their crop, quite against the will of the farmer.