Great advance; however, the problem isthat it still requires the recipient to be immune deficient i.e. the testes with beta cell islet cell characteristics were transplanted into the back of immune deficient mice

There are plenty of people who espouse the view that patent protection is simply a tool for big business to flex its muscle and block access to innovation by small players and competitors. However, the underlying rationale of patent protection is to force an invention onto the public record. Sure, the patent owner gets a monopoly but it is limited for a specific period of time (very limited if you compare it to the monopoly a copyright owner gets) and after that it is free for all to use – down to the very last detail. In fact, you can’t get a patent unless you put in the detail. So the patent databases in reality form the largest standardised library in the worldpublicly accessible (no paywall / subscription fees) and reliable (at least in relation to granted or issued patents). Why should the open source community consider patenting? Getting a patent for an invention blocks another party from getting a patent for the same invention. So, if a group of open source collaborators can secure a patent, it can choose to grant a royalty-free licence to the open source community to use it (just as open source software is licensed). This secures the invention for public use immediately. In other words, it blocks the ability for another party to patent that invention and prevents that other party from exploiting it for commercial gain. Check mate. Secondly, it secures the open source community the right to continue using the patented invention subject to the terms of the patent licence. A term of the licence may be that any modifications, enhancements or improvements are owned by the (open source) patent owner, thereby retaining all enhancements for public use. Thirdly, open source patented innovations reside on patent databases and thus form part of the same public record, which makes the public record more comprehensive and useful to the community at large. For more see http://bit.ly/dwJqE3 & http://1p.com.au/

Open source patenting is a possibility and beneficial for software: There are plenty of people who espouse the view that patent protection is simply a tool for big business to flex its muscle and block access to innovation by small players and competitors. However, the underlying rationale of patent protection is to force an invention onto the public record. Sure, the patent owner gets a monopoly but it is limited for a specific period of time (very limited if you compare it to the monopoly a copyright owner gets) and after that it is free for all to use – down to the very last detail. In fact, you can’t get a patent unless you put in the detail. So the patent databases in reality form the largest standardised library in the worldpublicly accessible (no paywall / subscription fees) and reliable (at least in relation to granted or issued patents). Why should the open source community consider patenting? Getting a patent for an invention blocks another party from getting a patent for the same invention. So, if a group of open source collaborators can secure a patent, it can choose to grant a royalty-free licence to the open source community to use it (just as open source software is licensed). This secures the invention for public use immediately. In other words, it blocks the ability for another party to patent that invention and prevents that other party from exploiting it for commercial gain. Check mate. Secondly, it secures the open source community the right to continue using the patented invention subject to the terms of the patent licence. A term of the licence may be that any modifications, enhancements or improvements are owned by the (open source) patent owner, thereby retaining all enhancements for public use. Thirdly, open source patented innovations reside on patent databases and thus form part of the same public record, which makes the public record more comprehensive and useful to the community at large. So, how is open source patenting workable? One of the key hurdles to patentability is that an invention needs to be novel (new). This means it cannot be publicly known or used before the patent is applied for. How can open source collaborators collaborate without destroying novelty? One suggestion for making it workable would be to exploit the “grace period” available under patent laws in countries such as Australia, Canada, Japan and the USA. A grace period means that you can still apply for a patent after disclosing your invention (sharing it with open source collaborators) so long as you lodge your patent within 6 to 12 months (depending on the country). Sure, it’s not foolproof because not every country has a grace period (Europe is a notable exception) but we’re talking about ways to overcome hurdles to enable open source collaborators to tap in to the benefits of patenting. Another suggestion is that a project be flagged for patenting at its inception (before any detail is provided) and collaborators sign up under an NDA before they can view and contribute. For example, an inventor could: provide a high level view of their invention onto a site; invite contributions or help from the peer to peer to join in drafting a patent description; interested participants could subsequently request to join the community specifically associated with drafting that patent description; The inventor and associated community can then let the new contributor join if they show skills that are helpful to the patent’s description generation; and All contributions would be logged against each contributor so as to determine if they are making a technical or inventive contribution. What about costs? Building a community of particular skill sets to help draft the description of an invention for a patent would offset patenting costs and aid in obtaining a contribution by a community in an Open Source manner. The patent once described (e.g. as per the steps above) could have a patent attorney draft the claims or oversee the claim drafting, rather than being involved throughout the process. If the patent is successful, then: it could be offered as a kernel to build further inventions off via divisional patents, etc. if there is a commercial use (even by donation) then any funds received can be made available for use: by the contributors/inventors, or the community to promote further open source patent opportunities such as a contribution for payment of Official Fees in each jurisdiction. We see this approach as an open source solution to promote access and availability to the excellent resources available both in the community and in the patent offices around the world. First published in http://www.1place.com.au/wptest.php

There are traits the can reveal an intention in a statistical sense; however, I am not aware of how this can apply significantly to the individual (other than on the TV). Also should such predictive power be only used by the criminal justice system? I would imagine that if true prevention was intended to take place with our juveniles then this should involve skilled psychologists etc. not just the criminal justice system, since help is better than harm!

A diagnostic assay would be a solution over and above the current solutions proposed. For example, according to Nature Medicine 16, 348 (2010) the law is responsible the success of counterfeit drugs? Why the law is poor Nature Medicine proposes that the reporting of counterfeit drugs is not mandatory and therefore is underreported. This may be true for the USA where pharmaceuticals are bought online, which is a major distribution source of counterfeit drugs; however, in countries like Australia, this is not a major source of counterfeit drugs. But where is the problem most endemic? In countries such as India, it is a huge problem since the recipients of counterfeit drugs cannot generally buy legitimate drugs through legitimate means. In my mind, the first question arises is how does one know that a drug is counterfeit and therefore know to report? This is the first step. The problem with counterfeit drugs is that they do not contain the pharmaceutical required for its action, or may contain a poison. More laws do not remove the problem There are many laws already available to stop the sale of counterfeit drugs; however, we are not seeing these laws being used. Why? The main problem is detection. How is an individual or even a practitioner to know if a drug is not working? Is it because of the patient’s own response, the profile of the drug (many drugs are not 100% effective in all patients at all times) or because a drug is counterfeit? Increasing the policing of counterfeit drugs by putting a mandatory obligation onto reporting of counterfeit drugs will not address the above problems. This really in turn is making a recipient of a counterfeit drug a criminal if they do not report it. Further increasing policing of reporting has a huge cost with little return. Use reward, not the stick! I believe that increased reporting is necessary, but not by imposing penalties. A reward for reporting counterfeits would have a much more positive outcome for all concerned. This will help stop counterfeit drug trafficking, because it: 1. will not cause criminalisation the innocent recipients, thus further expanding the black market; and 2. will help the recipients of counterfeit drugs, who are the most vulnerable due, afford the legitimate channels for legitimate drugs. Further, industry should support the development of readily available objective tools for proper screening of drugs to allow recipients to determine the legitimacy of drugs they have received, thereby facilitating the reporting of counterfeits. http://www.1place.com.au/wptest.php

In contrast to Rupert Murdoch hatred of Google, there is a growing demand, including that of President Barack Obama, for greater public access to publications of particular interest - for example biomedicine, which may also extend to other research agencies. In the journal Nature (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7290/full/464813a.html) it was reported that the "US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to make authors' or publishers' versions of research papers publicly available in the PubMed Central repository within 12 months of publication." PubMed Central repository is a bit like a Google listing. Further, it is speculated in the nature article that "President Barack Obama might soon issue an executive order extending this requirement to all federal research agencies".

Why would Apple produce another search engine as a slow follower? We need something more such as a transaction engine: search a question and a transaction engine places the information from multiple sources into a coherent answer - like a self forming Wikipedia. Imagine - you have a legal question and you can place your question into a Transaction Engine so that it could ask you questions, and form say an agreement, essay, advice, ... from multiple sources of information. Consequently, the tool also acts as a learning teaching device. Our website at http://1place.com.au/ has a question/answer expert system; however, if we had a tool to draw from the masses of information on the net then it would be different and worthwhile.

The race started with the establishment of neuro-informatics, using software to analyse the 120-million-base-pair genome of the fruit fly. USA's Craig Venter, via his firm Celera, challenged established government funded science and started the race to sequence the human genome. Along the journey his firm patented software and algorithms that were used to analyse the genome, along with patents on a 150 drug targeted genes. My understanding is that these patents did not, & do not, limit academic research into the human genome and that Venter's team was a major contributer to public gene libraries. Where does the race end? Craig Venter in his book "A Life Decoded" stated that the artificial cell was the next step, where drugs could be trialled by inserting cassettes of genes into DNA to model answers to disease and genetic deformities: Craig Venter is inspirational & what a decade!"