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Genome Project Squabbling
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Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long. -- Howard Kandel
Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long. -- Howard Kandel
Impossible task (Score:1)
This is impossible. You cannot remove the profit motive from scientific research except in periods of war or other danger.
Why? Because without a motive no advance will be made. Unfortunately, "benefiting patients" is not a motive in today's medical industry.
I'm not cynical, just honest.
Re:You ain't seen nothing yet. (Score:1)
True but irrelevant. Although it is still possible to patent a medical technique, current legislation exempts medical practitioners from infringing any patent on a medical procedure per se.
So, your neurologist ripped you off by itemizing a licence fee in your lobotomy bill.
They patent tons, with very few biologists (Score:1)
Even without access to full public data (like the raw chromatograms instead of assembled sequence) celera is certain to use the public data to know where their shotgunned fragments go.
I wonder how that will affect their patents, it's very sticky.
And yes, Celera is short time competitor and Celera's parent a long time benefactee of HGP
Anonymous Coward
Oh, CRA me a river... (Score:1)
Are you related to Bill Gates? Because you sure spout the same story as Bill.
CRA hasn't "innovated in the area of genetics" any more than Microsoft has "innovated" in the area of "browsers." What CRA has done is thrown tons of money at a well-understood and largely mechanical problem, and as a result, has the resources to complete it faster.
You think CRA innovates? I've got news--they're using off-the-shelf machinery to do a brute-force assembly of the human genome. It's not magic, it's not a new idea, and it certainly isn't novel enough to patent the approach they're using (which, considering today's lax patent standards, is saying quite a bit). Its like saying we should give exclusive lawnmowing rights to one guy because he went out and bought the biggest damn lawnmower in the nation (after all, he spent the money, right?)
"We will get results far, far faster letting the free market do the work with normal economic incentives, rather than letting a bunch of government researchers take decades to do something with the information."
First off, CRA isn't *doing* squat with the sequence data they collect. They are neither equipped nor staffed to do the science that will determine the function of the genes that they sequence. What CRA *is* doing is what pundits call "prospecting the genome." I call it genome squatting.
If CRA were inventing drugs based on genome research, and then patenting the results, I would wholeheartedly agree with you--economic incentive works in this situation. But that's not what CRA does! They're trying to set themselves up as a permanent gatekeeper to the genome by speeding by the HGP and giving everyone the finger on their way past the finish line. I find this behaviour reprehensible both ethically and scientifically.
Yes, you may claim that the HGP has been accelerated by the existence of CRA. Don't kid yourself. If the cost of this "speedup" is the loss of some large percentage of the genome from the public research sphere for 17 years, then we've slowed down research, not speeded it up.
Patent vs. copyright (Score:1)
I am sure Celera and the other companies are aware this distinction. Note that there was neither a mention of patenting or copyrighting information in the article, nor of other ways of protecting intellectual property (e. g. by declaring it as a trade secret). However, some people on
Re:Genomes and maps (Score:1)
Yes, it's the four nucleotides repeated 3 billion times. I believe Celera is just doing the human genome and taking shortcuts to get only the (supposedly) more interesting regions of the genome. The Human Genome Project is sequencing everything for humans and several other species (many of which are already done).
If I did this, would it look exactly like Cerela's map?
No, there would be variations between the two maps. Certain regions would vary more than others, but the expressed regions would likely be pretty similar.
If it does, what would keep me from making a copy of their map, selling it as my own and simply claiming I did all the work?
Biotech companies, such as the one I work for, Genentech, would be slightly concerned by the fact that you seemed to produce the map out of thin air. If we're going to go looking for novel proteins to make into drugs, we'd like to be relatively certain that the genome sequences we have are reliable. We would want to know about your sequencing techniques and methods. As you would have nothing to show, you would not sell many maps.
Greed Sucks (Score:1)
Imagine, for example, if Celera sequences a gene that happens to contain the root cause for cancer. Imagine if having access to this gene sequence makes creating a cure for cancer - or even better, a cancer *vaccine* - trivial.
I bet Celera is drooling over such a possibility, and that their licencing model includes some sort of royalty for products derived from their information.
But do we, as a species, really want this kind of information locked up where only a select (wealthy) few can get ahold of it? Do we want the research budgets of people looking for genetic-based cures to have to skyrocket further so that they can afford to pay Celera for their data? Don't we want things like cures for cancer (or whatever) to be as cheap and as widely available as possible?
Or how about this as a worst-case scenario: Celera patents gene XYZ. Lurking in the gene sequence of XYZ is that cure for cancer. The XYZ sequence is licenced by a few people, but none of them recognise that the cure is there. Celera's patent prevents the publication of XYZ's sequence by anyone else.
80 years later, the patent expires. The sequence to XYZ is finally available to a researcher capable of recognising that it contains the cure for cancer - and he does. A week later, a cancer vaccine is in testing, and two years after that, the cancer vaccine is in general use and cancer is eliminated.
How many people died horrible, lingering, suffering deaths so that Celera could enjoy their patent? How could a Celera employee or executive live with themselves, knowing they purposefully denied humanity something like this?
Greed sucks. Greed based on denying other people scientific knowlege sucks even harder.
Re:You ain't seen nothing yet. (Score:1)
There are certain times when freedom and the value of human life conflict. I'm not talking about a person's own life, but the lives of others. Usually, this is a more passive problem, but of course if you see your neighbor's house on fire and don't call 911 that was passive too.
Also, though I have much love for the free market, I think it has little value in the health-care industry. As another poster said, the point of medical care is not to maximize profits, but to maximize lives saved. There are some people who it simply will not be econmically wise to treat, but I believe they still deserve treatment.
Unfortunetely, I doubt there'd be any chance for the people of this country to have an intelligent discussion, since few seem to value freedom or life.
Re:Socialized medicine (Score:1)
Heh. Someone moderated the above as funny.
Anyway, I dispute the argument that free markets will find the optimal solution in health care out of hand. The reason? Free markets are very good at creating efficient markets. Finding the optimum price so as to give the most people the most adaquate care. However, this is not what we want when we talk about health care. We don't want efficient treatment, we want TOTAL (or near total) treatment. There are many incentives for Doctors and Patients to press for more health care than is efficient (hippocratic oath comes to mind).
In an efficient health care system, people are killed (loaded word) based on the probability that additional care wouldn't help them. Now discussion of property rights concerning health care (not just the genome projects) are important because they can further stratify the cost of service on marginal cases.
I don't feel like ranting right now, but there is a good chapter on this kind of thing in "The Age of Diminished Expectations" [Krugman].
Bottom line: free markets lead to efficient solutions + Society demands a non-efficient solution = We have problems.
New Patent (Score:1)
This is not about property rights. (Score:1)
Celera is a company that was formed by my own company, PE Biosystems, 2 years ago -- in order to sequence the human genome using our 3700 DNA Analyzer. While the sequencing itself is important, the main motive for creating the company was to promote this new instrument, and give the BioTech community a glimpse of its capacity compared to previous instruments. (The Human Genome Project had setup a timeframe based on our older 377 sequencer, which they for the most part are using).
The squabble mostly arises from the fact that Celera thus are able to accomplish in 2-3 years what the HGP had setup a 13-year time frame to do.
And oh sure, Celera is planning to review the mapped sequences (for accuracy, and to find out if there is stuff that can give them an edge over their competitors in terms of coming up with drugs etc), before releasing the information to the public; however they have committed to no more than a 3-month lag time from the time when they have mapped the genome (basically, put the puzzle together after having sequenced each piece) before the information is made public.
This, too, would mean that they would provide public data before the HGP. HGP, having received billions of dollars in government funding, are obviously a bit upset.
Now, there is of course a tendency among SlashDot readers to be somewhat militant with regards to anything that smells of a corporation, especially if it involves money. After all, the stock price of Celera (and PE Biosystems) have gained much more the last half year or so than has RedHat or VA Linux. Thing is though, there are still people (often with the same concerns for opennes) working inside companies like these, as there are outside. I, for one, can probably argue better than most people here why it is important that standards, platforms, and formats remain public, not subject to any one company's tyrannies. Thus, I think it is a bit far-fetched, and perhaps alienating, to put on the religious zeal and apply it against Celera, before even knowing what they are all about.
So there.
-tor
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Får i ulveklær.
Re:Has to be a better way (Score:1)
The same way that constellation X contained planetoid y in galaxy z due to the inherent gravitational effects of X and Y. They are obvious because they only need to be seen or read. The methodology for acually reading the sequence may be patentable,"non-obvious" but the actual sequence is, in the most exact use of the words, "obvious" and "prior art" since they are inherent in at leaset a fraction of the population.
What if a researcher discovers that the human response to excitement was to produce adrenaline . So he files patent on the chemical. Now wouldn't that just suck the next time you went out on a date and wanted to get excited? You would have to pay a royalty first. No more cheap dates.
Has to be a better way (Score:1)
It would seem to me that gene sequences are "obvious". And "obvious" things shouldn't recieve patent or will not stand up in the courts.
For instance, assume I build this bigass telescope to see further out in the universe than anyone else. Sure the telescope technology may be patentable, but all the stars that I see shouldn't be.
Suppose I was the first person to climb Mt. Everest or some other geographically remote place. Can I file patent and say that anyone else that sees the top of Mount Everest or takes pictures owes me a royalty?
Again, patenting obvious things is wrong and can't stand up in court. I'll even be willing to grant that the database structure that they use for the genome project is patentable, heck maybe even the software to access it. We all appreciate the work of these projects, but afterall they should only spend the research money and time if they see some non-obvious economical benefit.
Oh yea, what if someone patents the human genome and for some reason become unable to share the knowledge? What if they get sued and tie the database up in court? Its not just a loss of knowledge, its a loss of life.
Re:Socialized medicine (Score:1)
But it should be said that Canadians are not prevented from getting private health care. It doesn't even conflict with Medicare. If you want Blue Cross, or some other commercial insurance, it's entirely up to the individual. Medicare simply ensures that there is a safety net for people who can't afford expensive insurance.
And believe it or not, our taxes (both individual and corporate) are actually going down. According to the last federal budget, by 2004 we'll have the same corporate rate as the US. About damn time, too.
Re:Socialized medicine (Score:1)
Re:A company trying to keep its property (Score:1)
First, who is going to finance your duplication of someone elses work? (That, by the way, is a weakness of the 'replication' leg of scientific verification process.) And even if they did duplicate the work there is still that patent standing in the way of implimenting what they have rediscovered. The need to 'rediscover' is a waste of human resources and finances.
Secondly, and more important, is the issue of who financed the original work. I would surmize that you and I were paying for it with our tax dollars.
If so, what does it say about the ethics of these guys who get paid to do a job by/for the citizens? When they finally learn the important stuff they don't return the 'dividend' to the citizens, they run off and start their company and patent the knowledge they were paid to acquire.
No patents should be allowed or granted on facts learned through research financed by the government.
Re:Socialized medicine (Score:1)
To be fair, I will send you 1/20000000 of my profit in my Red Hat investment. Since there's probably 20 million Linux users, that's *your* share of what I have earned so far. Unfortunately, I've lost some money on Red Hat recently, so you will owe me money for this one too...
Don't be silly - squab is... (Score:1)
It must be quitting time.
Re:Gee, Gnome (Score:1)
Well, not quite. It is publicly funded, I believe most of the US support is from NIH. The Human Genome project is an international effort.
The conflict here (did you read the article?) is between the Genome project and a private company, Celera, which is racing to sequence and patent as much of the human genome as possible before the Human Genome project does. The two have been in talks to assimilate the data into a single database, but they seem to be hung up on intellectual property issues.
DUH (Score:1)
LK
Blah! (Score:1)
This bullshit just plain disgusts me. If they do in fact get a patent/trademark, can someone else still do their own genome database from scratch?
If not, then it is very, very important indeed that the HGP continue to work alone.. If we have two databases, and one is in the public domain, then we'll be ok.. People who want to pay for free data can do so, just like they do with sendmail pro.
I also love the first quote, from the doctor: "I don't work at a company, I work at a hospital."
Someone needs a little clue-stick action.
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blue
more on the genome rape and pillage (Score:1)
BIOINFORMATICS.ORG: The Open Lab [bioinformatics.org]
BIOINFORMATICS.ORG: The Open Lab, is a non-profit, scientific organization for research, development and information projects in the field of bioinformatics (biological information). We stand for 'open-source science' or the application of open-source ideals to science. Of course, this means we're against patenting scientific information.
Jeff
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This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
Re:Genomes and maps (Score:1)
I wonder why I see so many uses of the word "patent" with regards to the project. I agree with ucblockhead here regarding the right to copyright a map (as opposed to that which it is a map *of*).
Does anyone have any references to what exactly they're trying to "patent"? It seems the only patentable IP they have is the *process* used in mapping (re: Survey method) - assuming they developed it (no prior art).
Anyone?
Doctors. (Score:1)
How do Doctors employed by companies reconcile this fundamental aspect of being a doctor, with withholding information to protect their company's bottom line?
Hotnutz.com [hotnutz.com] - Funny
Re:Oh, CRA me a river... (Score:1)
Face it, investor relations is about conning the gullible out of their money with nice sounding rethoric, nothing else.
Re:Patenting genes is a bit more complicated (Score:1)
The human genome isnt a recipie for chicken soup. Its going to get done wether or not some money grubbing biotech company wannabe does it or not (which ultimately proves it isnt patentable, because then it would not be just a question of time).
Several years delay is far far preferable to faster results plus decades of patent issues.
Maybe time for another DeCSS? (Score:1)
A site on genomic patents (Score:1)
http://www3.hmc.edu/~pboothe/bio [hmc.edu]
Re:Law, IP, and real usefulness (Score:1)
Re:Gee, Gnome (Score:1)
The conflict here (did you read the article?) is between the Genome project and a private company, Celera, which is racing to sequence and patent as much of the human genome as possible before the Human Genome project does. The two have been in talks to assimilate the data into a single database, but they seem to be hung up on intellectual property issues.
It occurs to me that if Celera really wants to help (themselves as well as the project), all they need to do is NDA any researchers before they give them access to Celera's database. As I understand it, this effort is mostly to verify or give context to research from both sides. Any facts that the Genome researchers learn from Celera are not legally intellectual property, so as long as the Genome project doesn't release exact copy from Celera without permission, there shouldn't be any problem.
-Jennifer
Re:Genomes and maps (Score:1)
>If you don't want to pay them, then you are perfectly free to extract your own DNA and create your own map of the human genome.
If I did this, would it look exactly like Cerela's map? If it does, what would keep me from making a copy of their map, selling it as my own and simply claiming I did all the work?
Later
Erik Z
Re:A company trying to keep its property (Score:1)
Idea! (Score:1)
That way, when anyone tries go and get the human genome patented, we can sue them because of all their illegal use of our chunk of DNA, AGATCCGTC (which is surely in the human genome somewhere.)
Re:Anal irony, was Re:Genomes and maps (Score:1)
Re:Gee, Gnome (Score:1)
Re:A company trying to keep its property (Score:1)
The idea itself is ludicrous, as they have simply analysed a pattern existing in nature. I might as well copyright pictures of birds and charge anybody who wanted to put birds in a work of art.
Even if they had a legitimate claim (which they do not) this is data that NEEDS to be public regardless of who discovered what. The information contained in the human genome is a wealth of data about how we work. The implications for medical treatments are priceless and the potential for cures is endless.
No one party should have exclusive rights to this data, it belongs to all of us.
Re:patent the genome (Score:1)
Damn. I would think that 6 billion current (and billions more in the past tense) examples of "prior art" would be enough to discourage the patent office...
patent the genome (Score:1)
Moderate this up! (Score:1)
On the other hand, it might be too reasonable a voice for Slashdot, in which case you better moderate it down to "Troll". :)
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Re:Oh, CRA me a river... (Score:1)
Investor information is not perfect, but it's not marketing garbage either. They can't make exaggerated claims, or the FTC will nail their butt (or they open themselves to a shareholders lawsuit). In fact, I'm reminded of something I saw in the stamps.com investor information...
"We have a history of losses and expect to incur losses in the future, and we may never achieve profitability."
You're not going to normally see that in marketing literature. :)
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Re:Time to declare our rights .... (Score:1)
Copyright (Score:1)
Re:Impossible task (Score:1)
Discourages Public Efforts (Score:1)
This usurpation of the final results of a long-running publicly-funded study may be good business for Celera, but could be a disaster for the public at large, due to reduced competition and reduced opportunity for smaller and more innovate compaines to get traction early in their growth,. Craig Venter obviously would love to get a Microsoft-style stranglehold int he marketplace, but at the cost of cutting off the air to smaller competitors.
Re:It should be patented! (Score:1)
Maybe I am just being pedantic here, but I think this illustrates some of the ignorance regarding biology, and science in general, in the god old USA.
The Human genome has not been around for millions of years, the genome of c. elegens or drosophila, yes, perhaps.
Again, being pedantic, the chemical nature of DNA was not even elucidated until 1953, or 47 years ago, not "most of a century."
Tired of this (Score:2)
One of the things that is getting very tiresome about Slashdork is the misapplication of the GPL. The GPL was designed as a software license. If you are talking about applying it to music, graphic arts, or genome mapping, you are misapplying it. It also makes you sound like a narrow-minded frothing zealot.
There's nothing wrong with wanting looser, more consumer-friendly licenses on intellectual property, but shouting "GPL IT!" everytime copyrightable material is discussed is just lame.
Turn off your computer, go to a symphony, catch a play, read a book, and realize that the whole damn world doesn't revolve around Free Software vs. Amazon Patents. Ok?
(rant over. thanks.)
Re:Genomes and maps (Score:2)
You ain't seen nothing yet. (Score:2)
This is a huge, and explosive ethical question. Currently, medical agencies are able to justify denying certain costly treatments because the cost of the treatment generally stems from the actual cost of doing the treatment. That is, a liver transplant costs $1 million because it takes that much effort to transplant a liver.
The only case where this is not the case is in pharmaceuticals. And there, it is primarily the amortized cost of tremendous amounts of R&D that drives the prices up. (This is really an aside, but recently South Africa told several US drug companies to bug off regarding certain AIDS medications and started making them without a license. Bottom line: half their population has AIDS, and they can't afford the drugs. The drug companies tried to sue, but then got smart and relented when they saw which way the wind blew. The pharmaceutical situation will endure in the US only as long as the few people obviously dying from lack of drugs are from marginalized segments of the society.)
The case we are heading to is the one where a heart surgeon will be operating on a patient who cannot afford to license a certain technique, and he will have to choose between disregarding patent law or risking his patient's life. This could also eaily come up in the genome issue.
The problem is that our society does not have a clear ethic describing the value of human life. This is evident all over the place: the abortion debate, the assisted suicide debate, even the "violent video games" debate. What is the value of man, and how great a crime is it kill one? What value is life compared to freedom? What about economic freedom? Is buying a drug company executive a sports car really worth a single life?
My point is not some kind of Marxism. My point is that we need to be asking these questions.
On what basis can we construct an ethical system for our society? What is the underlying principal? Who defines right?
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Re:The points are correct, but.... (Score:2)
I agree that there's a problem here. In fact, I'd say that, next to the privacy issue, the level of advance required for a patent is the biggest social issue in genomics. There's a definite need for thoughtful discussion and for lobbying. I just don't see how comments like "Actually, these people are making Amazon.com look like amateurs. DNA sequences are patented even though the patenter has no idea what the sequence does. It's worse than software patents." contribute to that.
(If you'll excuse some crotchety old-timer
As to Celera, they haven't been around long. But shotgunning the genome makes them a competiter to the genome project, longstanding or not. They said they were going to do the easy parts of the fly, they did They say they will do the easy parts of the human, well....
My point about "longstanding" was that the Wired article was superficial and vague, most notably in their description of a company that's, what, two years old? Incidentally, their claim to have shotgunned the fly sequence is typical Celera BS. They relied on a physical map from the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project for their assembly. As for the human sequence, as you say, well... Hopefully there will be an equitable compromise reached.
Re:Gee, Gnome (Score:2)
This was part of my point, though. First, I don't believe that you can patent the database. Copyright it, perhaps -- but not patent it (you could patent the process by which the information for the database was gathered, perhaps). Further, Celera could certainly copyright their database. The Genome Project could copyright theirs. They could both copyright the compilation of data.
You would end up with three databases and three seperate copyrights. Each owning a copyright to their own data and a third joint-copyright of the joined data. We see this all the time elsewhere.
I think they are hung-up on the fact that this was such an incredibly massive undertaking and to do it again would break almost anyone's bank account. So copyrighting the data will still give a large amount of wealth and power to whoever owns it. (A lab at OHSU wants to look at information that may help them enhance their treatment of heart disease? Great, fork over the bucks to access our database(s).)
I can understand the conflict if a large portion of Celera's data was directly attributed to the Genome Project's work itself and was not data Celera obtained by its own work (or under a co-operative contract between themselves and those running the Genome Project). The article itself did not seem to contain any specific information with regard to exactly who acquired what part of the data and how, not to mention what any original agreement may have been.
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icq:2057699
seumas.com
Doctors? (Score:2)
Chuck - who's genetic makeup is protected by copyright law and international treaty. Any unauthorised use or reproduction (?!) may result in severe civil and criminal penalties and will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible under the law. This genetic material is presented "as is" without warrenty, express or implied, as to merchantability or fitness for survival.
Not obscure enough? (Score:2)
And maybe these genome reserchers understood that...
My understanding of the situation... (Score:2)
Now, this method is good for getting a rough-draft sequence done quickly, but doesn't really apply to the goal I mentioned above: quickly and cheaply sequencing genes from individual patients. This may be why Celera is so hung up on protecting their database; if they haven't developed any quick, cheap, accurate sequencing methods, the database is their only asset! (At least in terms of the human genome.)
If this is so, I really have no sympathy for them. If this is not so, somebody please correct me.
Abolish the FDA? Are you serious? (Score:2)
I'm sorry for your loss. My mother died of lung cancer also.
"If we want fast development of new drugs, abolish the FDA and get the gov out of the Human Genome business. "
I think you have a perspective that is untainted by history. The creation of the FDA around the turn of the century (Although the FDA will not bear that name until 1930) was one of several responses to the appalling state of the pharmaceutical and food industries that preceeded it.
In those days, adulteration of food with sometimes dangerous dyes, preservatives, and fillers was extremely common (Look up Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" and the history of "Swill Milk"), and the pharmaceutical market was flooded with quack cures and patent medicines whose main ingredients were often alcohol or laudanum.
A number of laws were passed in response to this situation (in particular Roosevelt's Food and Drugs Act). The FDA began as an agency that provided chemical analysis and support for these laws. It quickly gained an international reputation for effectiveness, and became the model for many similar agencies in other developed countries.
The FDA is a rarity in government, an agency that is both highly competent and beneficial. I happen to work as a scientist in the commercial pharmaceutical industry, and the FDA regulates oversees us very tightly, both in research and production environments. It generates mounds of paperwork and adsorbs lots of extra time and labor--but this is a *good* thing. Thanks to the FDA, you can be assured that medicines you buy have been tested for purity and potency both before (materials), during, and after manufacture, and that there's a full trail of accountabiliy for the both the end product, the materials, and everyone who handled them. Believe me, few companies would take these quality control steps if it weren't for the FDA.
I do think that fast-track development needs to be extended for certain severe diseases. In the case of AIDS, it was not just the existence of a powerful lobbying group that allowed fast-track to occur. It was also the complete absence of any conventional treatment for the disease, coupled with a 100% progression to terminal illness that did it, and the FDA does tend to be more lenient with trials for other 100% fatal diseases.
The main arguement against extension to something like cancer is that there exists a conventional treatment that has some effectiveness, even if it's not a whole lot. The problem is, the majority of experimental medicines are not better than conventional treatment. The majority are worse, and nobody ever hears about the failures unless they are spectacular--and that's the problem with "Kill or Cure".
Pure idocy (Score:2)
I can see a patent for extinct animals, but for creatures that still walk the earth, it's laughable.
If they can get a patent on the human genome, what's to stop them from imposing a license fee on every birth?
LK
Johnny Mnemonic (Score:2)
Think about it - on one side we have MegaCorp patenting everything under the sun or being really assholeish with copyrights (played by Bezos and Valente) On the other we have the good Dr. and the hacker (played by Henry Rollins and Ice-T) trying to get the information out to everyone.
Instead of doing good for humanity, MegaCorp holds back because they are making more money by selling something to give relief instead of the cure.
When is this "everything for a buck" mentality going to stop? I have no problem with folks making money, but this is all just getting too insane for humanity's good.
Really, the only thing we are missing from the whole Johnny Mnemonic thing is a bunch of gun toting hitmen out to get JM... but then again they are here - in the form of lawyers.
Re:Gee, Gnome (Score:2)
U.S. Government employees can obtain patents. You may be thinking of copyrights. In general, material produced by the government can't be copyrighted. Besides, can you talk the original author into registering the copyright?
Re:It should be patented! (Score:2)
Prosecutor : So you see, your Honor. This person is very obviously "digesting" food. We discovered and patented how this process works on a fundamental level, and are trying to recieve recompense for our studies.
Defendant : but, but (tummy growls)
Posecutor : That'll be another five dollars.
Defendant's Public Defender : Your honor, I'd like to call a special witness to establish prior art.
Judge : Okee-dokey
Bailiff : The defendants call GOD to the stand.
Bailiff : Place your hand on the Bible, Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, uh, God.
GOD : I AM THE TRUTH
Bailiff : Good enough for me.
Defendant's Lawyer : So you say you knew about this whole DNA thing years ago?
GOD : YES, BILLIONS OF YEARS IN THE PLANNING STAGES, BILLIONS OF YEARS IN THE GROWING STAGES AND MILLIONS OF YEARS OF FIELD TESTING.
DL : Yet, in all that time you failed to get a patent on your creation?
GOD : PLEASE REFER TO INTER-DIMENSIONAL DOCUMENT #F45369 DETAILING THE CREATION AND EVOLUTION OF A SENTIENT SPECIES.
DL : Umm, all I see is a bright light..
(enough of this, time for lunch...patenting parts of people is stupid, really stupid. "Owning" existing genetic code is similarly so. If they actually invent something, maybe, but just finding something and thereby owning it...they get to name it, but owning it, NO)
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Oh, gEnome... (Score:2)
A company trying to keep its property (Score:2)
It doesn't seem that they are trying to screw anyone else. It is possible that another company could obtain their information and cut them out of the market. Not good when you have spent a few million dollars.
Well it is just software, add it to my portfolio (Score:2)
A sequence of carrier molecules that can be used to replicate software through biological life forms.
As a supporting patent, we are also patenting the description of geographical areas by reprenting them in a virtualised form on a compressed cellolose subtrate using a biologically based light sensor descibed in patent 1 as a reader and chemical compounds that rely on the differential reflection of electro-magnetic radiation to encode
the virtualised geography onto the substrate.
In regards to patent 1, we intend on charging an imodest royalty whenever licenced users engage in sexual intercourse. Patent 2 will be vigorously enforced, even though our only licenced application for the forseable future is a 1956 AAA roadmap of Bumfukt AZ.
X.
Re:Ups and Downs of patenting DNA sequences (Score:2)
In terms of patents (not directly related to this story) I do think that some patents might be ok, if they represent a new, genetically engineered sequence not originally found in nature.
Re:Greed Sucks (Score:2)
Again, it depends on whether we are talking about patents or copyrights. If they copyright a set of information that includes the sequence for XYZ, they cannot prevent anyone from publishing that sequence unless it was originally derived from them. Anyone can get their own sequencing equipment, sequence the gene, and do whatever the hell they want.
This is very different from a patent, which would prevent anyone from using the sequence. I am nearly positive they cannot patent an existing sequence, only a new one not found in nature. (At least, I hope so.)
Anyway, patents expire in something like twenty years, not eighty. It is copyrights that expire only after an ungodly long time.
Anal for anal (IANAL). (Score:2)
Free market isn't always effecient. (Score:2)
One failures in capitalism are in defense-spending. An army is a very ineffecient use of resources. Capitalism also tends to not create incentives to create goods where the initial cost is large, but the marginal cost is very small, like creative works. (music, software, film,
The free market also assumes that there is more than one source of any particular good, and that the sources are competing with each other. (No price fixing, collusion, or monopolistic practices.) This doesn't always hold true in the face of patents and copyrights.
The problem with the automated patenting of genes is that there cannot be competetion; patents are temporary monopolies. And because of CRA's squatting on large tracts of the geonome, they will be retarding research. The geonome is a large book in a cryptic language. CRA is getting a monopoly on pages, just because they transcribed them, while the people who translate those pages into discoveries, cures, and knowledge may get very little.
Also, the monopoly granted through patents isn't coming from the free market, and it won't be 'fixed' by the free market either. A free market doesn't have patents. In a pure free market the moment an innovation becomes public, it becomes public domain and free for all to use. Is this the free market that you want?
Patents and copyrights and government exist to overcome the shortcomings in the free market and to make civilization more efficient. Sometimes they fail at that, and new laws have to be made to try to restore efficiency.
[Personally, I feel that patents and copyright are OK if they're properly allowed. Patents should be allowed on those creations which actually contribute to civilization and knowledge. Copyright is OK if the term is a reasonable length, I like 20 years (with a 20 year extension). This was the origional term.) By granting patents for trivial inventions and granting copyrights for a hundred years (after death), you cheapen them for all.]
Backwards view, as usual for the media (Score:2)
Fleming put the patent for penicillin into the public domain, resulting in a several-year delay until it got to patients: without a guaranteed profit, no company could afford the development and testing expenses.
That was in the 1940s, before we had massive regulation by the FDA. Now it costs $500M to develop a new drug and get it past the regulatory hurdles. --> the drug industry looks like a regulated monopoly or the high-end military supply industry.
If we want fast development of new drugs, abolish the FDA and get the gov out of the Human Genome business.
Compare progress of AIDS and lung cancer. AIDS had a pressure group to make the FDA relax regulations on experimental drugs. The 'fast track' approach killed people, but progress has been very rapid. With more absolute $s put into lung cancer (a simpler disease, I believe) people are still dying untreated and/or while participating in safety trials for the many new drugs becoming available.
My father-in-law was one such case. "No ill effect from the doses in the safety trial. Great, now go home and die." He did, within about 6 weeks.
"Kill or cure" would have been a choice available to him in the absence of a bureaucracy.
Lew
Time to declare our rights .... (Score:2)
I wonder if we should get them tattooed with a "(c) ..." just to make sure.
Of course we'll gift them with their own copyright when they hit 18 and they can do what they like with it.
I guess we have to send a sample of our works to the copyright office .... but I wonder if many voodoo practioners work there ....
Re:patent the genome (Score:2)
Sort of. Patenters have to provide some explanation of what it does, and a specific description of its application. But they can be pretty vauge, and even incorrect from time to time -- patent examiners have no clue what they're reading.
For example, CCR5 and CXCCR4, genes that code for chemotactic receptors targetted by HIV, were both granted patents a few days ago. The patent specifically describes how the receptors interact with chemotactic factors, but barely mentions HIV. Still, any anti-AIDS drugs that blocks CCR binding will still be subject to the patent.
National Science Trust (Score:2)
Since the scientific method is based on replication to achieve greater confidence, and greater confidence corresponds to added information, the quantification needs to include metrics on how much information is added by replication measurements, and reward those replications as well -- albiet at a lower rate since less information accumulates per measurement replication.
This would have handled all sorts of things such as environmental monitoring, human genome sequencing, adding significant digits onto known physical constants, etc.
The value of something like this is that it cleanly separates the role of public and private sectors and gets government out of detailed analyses of who is more likely to succeed in their proposed research efforts. Of course the primary reason the legislation wasn't passed into law is because it gets government out of detailed analyses of who is more likely to succeed in theirproposed research efforts -- guvvies just love to "pick winners" because that is power.
Re:Not this again! (Score:2)
False. Or rather, ought to be true, but false in practice. Consider, if you will, this press release [hgsi.com] announcing a patent on a key HIV cellular receptor. Nominally, the patent does cover "techniques" related to it, but the techniques listed on the front page are all just references to standard molecular experiments that can be performed when you know a gene. The basic argument seems to be that the gene is a process for producing a protein, and is therefore allowed. (View front page of patent at IBM [ibm.com].)
It's begun. I think the patent system is great, but genes and software (the two new and rapidly-growing fields) are not handled properly. Too many people stand to gain from the current system for it to be fixed. IMHO, the correct thing to do would be to take a patented gene (the sequence must be disclosed in the patent, and all you need is that sequence, a lab, and a few grad students...) and come up with some amazing cure. Announce it to the world. State exactly how to use it. The patent-holder will sue. You then get to go before a court and explain that BigGeneCorp is holding back treatment that could save thousands. Eventually, you will go to the Supreme Court, which will probably throw away all such patents because they're secretly a bunch of libertarians. It'll cost millions and take a decade, but genes will be free again.
There's also a simpler but less powerful attack. This patent covers one sequence of nucleotides. Most human proteins can be encoded by more than one sequence. Take this sequence and find a spot that (according to computer modeling) allows polymorphisms. Express that new protein to be sure it works just as well. Now patent that and make the patent freely available. This can, in theory, be done for almost any patented gene. (This is a business model. You may use this business model which I have just invented if you do not attempt to profit from it. If you try to profit from it, I will patent your grandmother and have you killed for infringement.
Alik
Patenting genes is a bit more complicated (Score:2)
that aren't being addressed here. (I'm generally against the patenting of genetic material, especially when someone patents a sequence and doesn't give credit to the 30 researchers who spent their lives researching that sequence's product.)
Those issues are: How are sequencers going to protect their businesses. This isn't like open source where some 25 year old can do it in the evenings. This costs bucks. If they can't patent the sequences they wont *publish* the sequences limiting research on the sequences. They, in general, don't want to limit research, they want to make money. How do big public genome projects get done? Through government funding, which is certainly not going to sequence everything...
Also, If a gene is patented, often times it is to protect the researcher's interest in that sequence out of fear that someone else (like Venter's Celera) will do it for them. Personally, I think this is driving a good part of patents today.
Protection of intellectual property is important in biotech. These companies cost millions to start up and run. They run for years without a product. Like I said, it really isn't much like startup internet companies being started by a couple of people working evenings and weekends. Lab space is expensive, techs and employees for biotechs often start at higher wages than internet co's and require a lot more resources.
-- Moondog
Re:Oh, CRA me a river... (Score:2)
First of all, while I'll admit investor information is not a perfect source of information, it isn't normally complete marketing crap due to FTC regulations. That said...
FYI, the technique used by CRA is called shotgun sequencing, and it has been debated before, but until recently was thought too resource intensive for use on very large genomes.
My understanding was that that is one of the innovations that CRA has brought to the table. Not just the resource intensiveness, but many thought that assembly wouldn't be possible using that technique.
According to this New York Times Article [nytimes.com], CRA has also developed computer software to solve the assembly problem.
Look, the point of all this is that you claim that there is nothing new that CRA is doing except spending money, and that is simply not true. As the saying goes, if it were that easy, everyone would do it.
There is certainly a lot of questions still surrounding CRA's business model, but I think you're being a little hard on them.
CRA may only patent 300 or so of the thousands of genes they have preliminary patents on, but these 300 will have been carefully picked over by CRA and the drug companies so that no one else gets access to anything of serious value. Now, explain to me how this sort of behavior is supposed to encourage calculated risk and entrepreneurism in the biotech community?
For the same reason that we allow drug patents... it's not that easy, and it's very expensive to do analysis and produce drugs. The only way it can happen is to allow a drug company to recoup the investment in discovering, testing and producing the drug. Otherwise, you have a drug company investing 100s of millions to develop a drug, only to see it manufactured overseas by anyone and everyone. That does not foster innovation.
--
Re:Oh, CRA me a river... (Score:2)
You don't know what you're talking about.
You think CRA innovates? I've got news--they're using off-the-shelf machinery to do a brute-force assembly of the human genome.
A quote from their investor information [204.255.73.9]: "To map all 80,000 human genes and find our SNPs, Celera is using Whole Genome Sequencing, a technique pioneered by several of Celera's scientists who were formerly at The Institute for Genomic Research. Using sound waves, a chromosome sample is dispersed into small DNA fragments that can be sequenced, then mapped back together based on their unique base-pair coding. In many cases, a 500-base-pair overlap at the end of a fragment is sufficient to determine that a particular piece of DNA belongs on a particular chromosome."
In other words, there is a reason that they've been able to do it so fast. They are years ahead of the Human Genome Project.
First off, CRA isn't *doing* squat with the sequence data they collect. They are neither equipped nor staffed to do the science that will determine the function of the genes that they sequence. What CRA *is* doing is what pundits call "prospecting the genome." I call it genome squatting.
Why don't you read their investor statements before spouting off about which you know nothing. Their entire business model is based on selling analysis of the information to drug companies. They already have several large firms signed to use them.
--
Re:Socialized medicine (Score:2)
In what way "a failure wherever it's tried"?
In most countries, there are long waiting lists for elective surgery, and sometimes even for major surgeries. Advanced medical equipment like CAT scanners are rare, and again there are waiting lists. There is a reason that people who can afford it come to the US for treatment.
But you will be treated even if you have no money and happen to get sick or have an accident.
Same in the US. Anyone can walk into a hospital and get emergency treatment by law.
But why should everything have a price? Especially those innovations which are good for everyone.
Because that's what works. Innovations happen because someone works very hard to create them, and the best incentive to innovation is giving someone a path to a better life through hard work.
I mean, why was agriculture in the Soviet Union such a disaster, when food is even more important than medical care? You would think that farmers would recognize their obligation to feed the country, and work their hardest. Well, it didn't happen that way. There was no point in working hard, because hard work or easy work gave you exactly the same day-to-day result.
--
Genome and GNOME! (Score:2)
Mike Roberto
- roberto@apk.net
-- AOL IM: MicroBerto
Re:Socialized medicine (Score:2)
I've got some news for you: Accidents and diseases is not something that just happens to people who "don't run [their] life right"
Life is not fair. Noone can afford treatment for a serious condition without some form of insurance. I actually believe that the government is better suited to handle that insurance, since it is in their best interest to keep me well, voting for them and paying my taxes.
Law, IP, and real usefulness (Score:2)
The HGI has been around for decades. It's common knowledge amongst anyone with half an ear for science news, (or who've played Civ II) and I can't believe that Celera's founders had never heard of it.
So, Celera is taking new technology and intends to finish the job faster. And probably cheaper. Which catechism insists rules out "better." But what they want to do is claim the arena. The Wired article describes Celera's attempt to collaborate with HGI in such a way that it would prevent the Genome's public release. And, I'm certain, their intention has been to manage this one way or another since their inception.
So, without actually doing anything new or useful, Celera intends to own the world market on the Human Genome for the life of their IP (rather than the estimated two year margin between their completion and the probably superior public release in 2003). And IP being what it is nowadays, that's likely to be much too long.
IMO, this is a key example of the Way Things Are failing We The People, and Us the Species. Between this and Palm Inc. expanding by 57.5 points on its first day (when 3Com is worth dirt in comparison, although they're the vast majority stockholder), I begin to wonder a> when the mainspring is going to snap and kill somebody and b> when and with what we can replace all this Victorian crap we have underpinning everything.
Re:NIH sequences and HELA cells (Score:2)
Answer: NO.
In the book Shamans, Software, and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society [barnesandnoble.com], the author, James Boyle, discusses this very issue. An excerpt from the beginning of the book:
The doctors made millions; the unwitting cell-provider received nothing and was told he had given up his rights to his own genetic material to the doctors. Be very afraid.
- tokengeekgrrl
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions
Re:Impossible task (Score:2)
I am a research biologist working right now at a NON-PROFIT research organization, and I will tell you that the costs of research are so enormous and prohibitive that government funding NEVER covers it, even in such "sexy" useful fields as genomics. For example, the cost of creating and keeping a colony of research mice for a year often runs as high as $60,000 or more for each laboratory, which consists of a principal investigator, maybe a couple of post docs, some technicians and (cheap) graduate students. This does not include salaries, rent on lab space, equipment cost (both initial and maintainence - average maintainance contract over $5,000/year per machine) reagent cost, computers, software, etc, etc. Therefore kissing up to corporate monies, or BECOMING coporate monies, as Craig Venter has done, is almost always neccassary, but not because the biologists are trying to make it that way.
People like Venter that establish their own biotech companies to make the big bucks should not immediately be villified either; as the process of becoming a research scientist is often as hard or harder (and time-consuming) as becoming a medical doctor, and most of us don't mind that they get the big bucks because we know they've worked hard and continue to do so. However, staying in non-profit academic research, while often more respected, does not get you any sort of equivalent job security (unless you can fight your way to tenure) or salary. Most of the people here that do create something new and patentable WANT to patent it, often for the money, but again I don't think that wanting to be rewarded for your work in a capitalist society is neccesarily evil.
This is not to say that I think scientists SHOULD be patenting sequences that they have no current use for, and do not even know yet whether they are introns ("throw-away" or structural parts of the chromosomes) or exons (genes), let alone what they do. If you come up with a novel assay, procedure, or something else with a gene you have sequenced, fine - patent that use. But patenting sequences themselves (that you have not personally created, which can be done) is 'patently' (ha!) deplorable.
Re:Impossible task (Score:2)
This isn't even remotely true. There are many projects which are financed for profitable gain. But, the vast majority of basic research is done for scientific and societal reasons. It is not true on the funding or on the individual level that it's done for profit motive. On the funding level, the government and universities don't fund particle physics research for profit, clearly. And, on the individual level, physicists get paid bumpkus compared to what they could be making elsewhere. Case in point: I left a software consulting job paying mucho dinero, with plenty of stock options, to come back to grad school. I can assure you profit motive had nothing to do with it.
If this research wasn't being financed by corporate entities, it would still get done, it would just get done much more slowly.
* mild mannered physics grad student by day *
Human Genome Patent News (Score:2)
it's about time. (Score:2)
NIH sequences and HELA cells (Score:2)
If I want the gene sequence to a well-characterised species (i.e. one for which there are molecular genetic studies), I can perform a search through the genome database at The National Center for Biotechnology Information [nih.gov] and download the base pair sequence for free, in addition to any other sequences that it is evolutionarily related to.
Needless to say, this is a great benefit to biological work.
Given that all of these sequences were obtained by researchers at various universities and institutes, using equipment that is funded by their own grants, why is it that a company with similar equipment needs the sort of reimbursement we are discussing here?
Moreover, if genome sequence information from Joe Public is used in fruitful biomedical research, will he be reimbursed? The historical record suggests not. HeLa cells, for example, were obtained from a female cancer patient whose name is immortalised in the abbreviation "HeLa". They are a ubiquitous "study organism" in molecular genetic laboratories. But I have yet to hear of recompensation for her estate.
Re:Oh, CRA me a river... (Score:3)
Look at that--a perfect description of brute-force assembly of the human genome. I'm certainly glad you corrected me.
FYI, the technique used by CRA is called shotgun sequencing, and it has been debated before, but until recently was thought too resource intensive for use on very large genomes. For some information outside of CRAs investor's information page, you might try these:
Sequencing of H. Influenzae
Science, July 28, 1995, V269, pp. 496-512
Shotgun Sequencing of the Human Genome
Science, June 5, 1998, V280, pp. 1540-42
(Hmmmm...you'll have to excuse me...I tend to get my misinformation from referred journals rather than corporate websites...)
"In other words, there is a reason that they've been able to do it so fast. They are years ahead of the Human Genome Project."
You know what? You're exactly right--CRA *is* ahead of the HGP, and they are *fast*. That doesn't change the fact that they're using off-the-shelf machinery and publicly available algorithms to do a tedious, well-understood and largely mechanical job.
"Their entire business model is based on selling analysis of the information to drug companies. They already have several large firms signed to use them."
Uh-huh. Go back to CRAs investor's information page and find out how many CRA employees are doing the wet-lab biochemical analysis that will figure out what the genome really means. CRA has hired a few good computational biologists, but these will only get you so far in the world of molecular biology and biochemistry. The real analysis work has to be done by the hordes of laboratory researchers who actually utilize the kind of data were talking about.
So what will CRA do if they don't have lots of these types of researchers? Well, based on CRAs ambiguous business model, my guess is that they're going to package up their sequence data with references to public literature--a la LEXIS/NEXIS. In essence, a repackager of human genome data. I have absolutely no problem with this.
I do have a problem with the way CRA is taking a scorched-earth policy to patenting genes. *This* is the real reason that drug companies have signed up with CRA for early access--they're hoping to get their dirty little mitts on the hot genes in CRAs patent portfolio--and in the process, get an exclusive license agreement for the use of the same. CRA may only patent 300 or so of the thousands of genes they have preliminary patents on, but these 300 will have been carefully picked over by CRA and the drug companies so that no one else gets access to anything of serious value. Now, explain to me how this sort of behavior is supposed to encourage calculated risk and entrepreneurism in the biotech community?
"Why don't you read their investor statements before spouting off about which you know nothing."
I hope you have a nice day too.
Re:Socialized medicine (Score:3)
(/me mounts his soapbox:)
The US does *not* have the best medical system in the world. I believe that honor goes to Canada. And guess what. We've got, gasp, socialized medicine.
I don't know about profit motives and incentives, but all I know is that people in my country don't go bankrupt because they can't pay for dialysis treatments. We aren't denied payment for our treatments from our HMOs because we've got AIDS, or cancer, or multiple sclerosis and aren't expected to live long. We don't have to take out a second mortgage to afford that liver transplant.
I personally know three people who received world-class chemotherapy, and who all make less than $40000 per year. (Two teachers and a call center worker.) Socialized medicine is not a failure when the government involved is truly committed to making it work, and is also accountable to the public. Unfortunately, that combination is lacking in many countries...
Imagine if the U.S. gov't poured a proportional amount of money that Canada does into the creation of a genuine full-scale socialized medical system. I hope it happens in my lifetime, so that I can see you folks down south not get screwed over by your HMO or insurance companies' shareholders.
(/me gets off his soapbox.)
Re:A company trying to keep its property (Score:3)
In other words, if they sequence gene XYZ, they certainly have the right to sell you this information in any manner they want. What they don't have the right to do is to tell anyone else that they can't sequence gene XYZ. In other words, they don't own the gene itself. They merely own their information about it.
It is no different from me doing lots of anatomical studies on the human heart, and then copyrighting the information and putting it up for sale. I can certainly do that. It doesn't mean that I "own" the human heart. You are free to gather your own information and copyright that. The only thing you can't do is copy mine without my permission.
Same here. All Celera is demanding is the right to be paid for the information they aquired if you get it from them. They are not denying you the right to go aquire the same information.
Re:yeah capitalism! (Score:3)
I was recently notified by Amazon that Carbon based life and processes to sustain it has now been patented by them . . .
It will cost my family an extra $45 this year if we have a child, $10 less though if we adopt! Think we'll adopt.
The points are correct, but.... (Score:3)
It's true that genes are not patentable. In general, though, genes are patented on their (fairly obvious) uses.
Also, to say that someone needs to do something with a sequence to patent is it is almost silly these days. The height one has to jump to get a gene patented really depends on the cost of the patent lawyer.
As to Celera, they haven't been around long. But shotgunning the genome makes them a competiter to the genome project, longstanding or not. They said they were going to do the easy parts of the fly, they did. They say they will do the easy parts of the human, well....
-- Moondog
Re:A company trying to keep its property (Score:3)
Instead, they have tried to cast themselves as a competitor to the public genome project. Our goal is to provide the human genome sequence as a freely available research resource. Venter initially declared that that was also Celera's goal. Now, though, they're filing thousands of provisional patents and asking for exclusive distribution rights to the human genome. That's not compatible with the public goals. Celera should just admit that they're a business, and stop trying to claim otherwise. The proposed collaboration fell apart because Celera would not accept the terms that *they* initially stated: that the human genome sequence would be made freely available to everyone. (Indeed, Venter testified before the US Senate on this very point.)
Again, in theory (Score:3)
Not to be snotty, but "you are right in theory, but..."
In practice, these companies have every intention of trying to protect "their" gene sequences as proprietory. Pharmecutical companies have done more rediculous things and had the courts back them up. Example:
Guy is getting some tests done at a hospital and they find that he has some sort of immunity/protien/useful cell property that could help them develope a treatment. Guy agrees to let them take a cell culture. Research proceeds apace and treatment is developed. Pharmacutical company associated with hospital research department patents treatment and the cell line it came from. Guy who's cells they are sues for ownership of his own cell line, loses. This means that not only does this company own their treatment, they own this guys unique cell line. He cannot choose to cooperate with another hospital so that they can independently develope the treatment and compete.
Now if this one company honestly wants to protect their right to sell info, al la a map maker, while allowing anyone else to independently produce the same info and give it away, that would be great. It would also be completely out of charecter with the history and stated goals of companies outside the Human Genome Project. So forgive us our cynicism.
On a side note, I get sick and tired of hearing about how these companies have to have patents to protect "their" investments. Do you have any idea how much of their research is done with government money, either directly, though "development" tax breaks or partnerships with universities supported by NSA grants? And then they turn around and talk about research costs and that they're a private business that has to make a profit.
Personally, I believe that pharmacutical companies should be given a simple choice. Either you are a private business looking out for your own bottom line and your research costs, in which case you will get no government support, including tax breaks and partnering with any government sponsered research facilities, OR you get all the benifits of societal support that we give pharmacutical and biotech companies in exchange for acceping a modified "public interest" patent on your developments. A Public Interest Patent (PIP) would have a significantly shorter expiration period than standard and would not be enforcable against authenticly convergent research. (insert research companies helping develope an audit proceedure for challenges to authentic convergency here).
If they are going to spout free market retoric to defend making a literal killing on life saving drugs, they should be willing to take their chances in a real free market.
-Kahuna Burger
Ups and Downs of patenting DNA sequences (Score:3)
On the upside, it makes more sense for major corporations to invest in the process if you allow patents to be issued.
However, on the downside again, by awarding patents you discourage the use of new, innovative techniques to map out DNA sequences. By this I mean that people who can dump massive amounts of resources into sequencing DNA using existing technologies may get results faster than researchers who look for new, faster, or more reliable ways to do the same thing. In the long run, having newer, faster and more reliable ways would be better, in case we ever want to sequence the DNA of other things.
A good link to check out is HUGO's (HUman Genome Organization) statement on patenting DNA sequences [ucl.ac.uk].
I am very curious to know what other people's opinions on this are.
Prostitution of Science (Score:3)
I, Galileo Galilei, citizen of Venice and discoverer of the four moons of Jupiter, hereby claim sole and exclusive property rights to the said Medecan Moons. Persons wishing to view the moons are required to pay license fees to myself, at the Sidereal Messenger Co., Inc, Ltd, etc. Persons taking an Unauthorized Peek at said Moons will be flogged and burnt at the stake, as is common in these times.
How far can science go when the entire basis, i.e., free exchange of ideas and information, is stifled? With no way to exchange information, scientific dialogue shuts down, and progress comes to a halt. Whether this is caused by cultural disapproval of those ideas (i.e., look up WWII Germany and the unreasoning prejudice against Einstein) or by simple greed, the effect is the same.
Einstein, by the way, believed that a physicist (and by extension, any other scientist) should give his ideas away to humanity for free. I think for that among many other reasons (Relativity) he remains the greatest scientist that has ever lived. . .
Re:Impossible task (Score:4)
This is impossible. You cannot remove the profit motive from scientific research except in periods of war or other danger.
Unfortunately for your argument, as the U.S. Human Genome Project [ornl.gov] home page points out,
Aparently, there is no profit motive here... instead, there is a rare glimpse into a government (well, OK, pone government, but I suspect other countries of the same benevolence) actually doing what most people think it should do: support and enhance the common good. Let's stop and savor that for a moment...
Mmmmmmmmm.
OK, that out of the way, I have to admit that in some senses, you're right. For the individual researchers on the project, this is the meal ticket! The mother lode! After working on this baby, they'll be able to get a job anywhere in the industry... as long as their work is recognized. As long as other people can examine it and judge it as worthy. As long as it is - dare I say it? - open .
Look at the Human Genome Project not as an excercise in biotechnology, but a bunch of gene hackers trying to earn a reputation and build something they can be proud of, and I think you'll find a lot of parallels between these folks and the ones who created the foundation of the internet lo so many moons ago.
Socialized medicine (Score:4)
Disclaimer: I'm a shareholder in CRA.
I think there's a more general point to be made about this, beyond the matter of Gene Patents. When I read these articles, I sense an attitude of "we need to get the profit out of medicine, so we can help more people." This is just ludicrious, and is one of the reasons that socialized medicine is a failure wherever it's tried. There's a reason that the US has by far the best health care in the world, and by far the best medical research in the world.
It's called profit. Sure, we could force CRA to throw away the millions of dollars they've spent in indexing the genome faster than anyone else. But that would not be in the best interest of society, because that sets a precedent that anyone who comes up with an innovation will have it deemed in "society's best interest" and be pressured to put in the public domain. Who needs the abuse?
We are far better off letting the market be efficient, and letting companies like CRA and others do what they do best -- which is innovate in the area of genetics. CRA is not going to hoard the information, they are going to license it.
We will get results far, far faster letting the free market do the work with normal economic incentives, rather than letting a bunch of government researchers take decades to do something with the information.
--
They are not patenting the sequences. (Score:4)
Also, there are two competing gene projects. One is the Human Genome Project, which is publicly funded and all of whose results are immediately put into the public domain; the other is run (mostly) by a private corporation called Celera Genomics, partnered with other companies. They're the ones getting the patents, which hopefully will be thrown out.
Exactly. Now the REAL concern here is ... (Score:4)
Now, if Celera gives full disclosure of their databases to the HGP, and the HGP uses that information to refine their own map, and the HGP's map is given out to researchers for FREE, then what does Celera have left to gain financially from their work? This is the real concern - for Celera to profit from this initiative, they by definition HAVE to retain some information from HGP, or else get the HGP to agree to some form of non-disclosure.
This article had nothing to do with genome patents (although if they're out there, they should be a concern of course). It's a scenario where corporate collaboration with a non-profit project could end up forcing the non-profit group to have limits placed on what information they can release, and how fully they can benefit the public.
It should be patented! (Score:4)
After all, didn't those guys INVENT the human genome?
What? They didn't? They discovered it then, huh? That counts for something...
Didn't do that either? You mean all they did was make a record of something that's been around for millions of years, and that we've known about for most of a century?
Sure, that discovery is worth something. Not sure what... A six pack of beer maybe...
Gonzo
Not this again! (Score:5)
Maybe we can get an Everything listing to explain these things in genome-related stories, instead of the same misconceptions popping up every time.
Gee, Gnome (Score:5)
How can you patent the mapping of the human genome? That's like patenting the mapping of the North American continent. Perhaps you can copyright a specific map that you've designed and drawn of the continent, but patent it?
I can understand patenting a specific process they may have used, which may be unique, to uncover and map the human genomes, but not the map itself. If they copyrighted the map, though, I would understand. That would also leave it open to other people and organizations to produce their own maps -- just like countless people have produced and released maps of North America. None of them are breaking any patent or copyright law by doing so.
I do not see any right given here beyond copyrighting this information. And doing so would not prevent anyone in the world from creating new technologies and treatments with this information. If they used this information, they would need to pay for it -- just like I would have to pay for acopy of Rand Mcnally's Road Atlas if I wanted to plan a trip across the country. McNally neither owns the country or the right to make maps of the country. But they do own a copyright on the individual map I am using to make my trip.
I would think that anyone who wants to make their own map of the human genome would be welcome to. They could then copyright or GPL their map -- or whatever else they wish to do with it.
I admit that this project brings amazing information and possibilities within our grasp, but we all must also admit that this was no trivial thing. This is a massive project which has taken massive funding and hundreds of man-years (minimally) to accomplish. If this was a private endeavor, it should be that private orgnaization's right to distribute and limit the information however they wish. If, however, the project was largely a public/government undertaking (as has always been my understanding) then this information needs to be freely available without restriction.
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icq:2057699
seumas.com
Genomes and maps (Score:5)
Today, maps are copyrighted, and for good reason. If I go out and spend millions surveying an area so that I can print an accurate map, I should be protected by copyright. Another person shouldn't be allowed to xerox my maps and then undercut my price. I deserve to be compensated for my investment. I don't own the information the maps are based on (the locations of cities and such). I own the my particular collection of it. While no own can legally copy my maps, they can go survey the area themselves and produce their own map. I suspect most people would find that eminantly fair. The person who does the work gets the money.
This is really no different. If Cerela creates a map of the human genome, they deserve the right to copyright their database of the human genome. That is only fair. However, they do not deserve the right to copyright the human genome itself. And, AFAIK, they aren't trying to.
In other words, if you want a copy of what Celera did, you should have to pay them. That is only fair. If you don't want to pay them, then you are perfectly free to extract your own DNA and create your own map of the human genome. They can't stop you. You can then sell your database, which you can certainly copyright yourself.
This is no different from geographical maps. No one "owns" the arrangement of geographical features in the world. Lots of mapmakers own their own particular collection of data concerning those features. That's the difference.
Perhaps a better example: If I write a book that describes the Linux kernel in detail, I can certainly copyright that description and charge whatever the hell I want for it. No one, not even Linus, can stop me. However, what I've copyrighted is my description of the Linux kernel, not the Linux kernel itself. This is no different. What Celera is talking about is not copyrighting the human genome, but copyrighting their description of the human genome.