Comment You can whine..until you need their test (Score 0) 205
Judging by the responses here, I seriously doubt anyone actually understands the service Prometheus provides to people. As a person who has benefited from two of their tests in diagnosing an illness, I can personally state their application of the patents seems fairly valid to me. They developed diagnostic tests and markers for disease and drug metabolism as well as the tests to go along with them. Their blood test for diagnosing Crohns disease was one of the first indicators that this was the disease afflicting me, how should their research into the biomarkers in my blood not be protected? Furthermore, when prescribed 6-MP, there is a test they offer to tell you what dose of 6-MP is safe for you to take, once again based on biomarkers in the blood, not actually based on the drug metabolites in your system. This test tells you what level of metabolism you can expect of the drug, and subsequently what dose of the drug is necessary to be within the safe therapeutic window of the drug.
In my eyes, at least in these two cases, their tests are both original and the result of their own funded research. Why should these not be patentable? Without their investment and research, the tests simply wouldn't exist as there aren't other tests on the market that can do the same thing. If there were other reliable markers for things like crohns disease to be diagnosed through a blood test, then it isn't like Prometheus owns those patents.
So before you all go cry wolf about how evil Prometheus is, remember that their tests do work, they are reasonably priced, and they provide a very clear benefit to the people who have had need of them. Whether they license out the technology for others to use or have all tests performed in house is fairly inconsequential so long as the test is readily available.
I can't speak to their other patents they might have, but if they are anything like the two I have experience with, then it might be beneficial for people to research what these tests do, their rough costs, and the company itself before forming an opinion on the matter. I might not know the legal standing for these kinds of patents, but I can tell you this...there is a very clear benefit provided from these specific tests and these specific tests WERE NOT public knowledge in any way, shape, or form before their discovery, meaning at the very least the statistical analysis used from a number of biomarkers in the blood makes for what I would call compelling intellectual property.
In my eyes, at least in these two cases, their tests are both original and the result of their own funded research. Why should these not be patentable? Without their investment and research, the tests simply wouldn't exist as there aren't other tests on the market that can do the same thing. If there were other reliable markers for things like crohns disease to be diagnosed through a blood test, then it isn't like Prometheus owns those patents.
So before you all go cry wolf about how evil Prometheus is, remember that their tests do work, they are reasonably priced, and they provide a very clear benefit to the people who have had need of them. Whether they license out the technology for others to use or have all tests performed in house is fairly inconsequential so long as the test is readily available.
I can't speak to their other patents they might have, but if they are anything like the two I have experience with, then it might be beneficial for people to research what these tests do, their rough costs, and the company itself before forming an opinion on the matter. I might not know the legal standing for these kinds of patents, but I can tell you this...there is a very clear benefit provided from these specific tests and these specific tests WERE NOT public knowledge in any way, shape, or form before their discovery, meaning at the very least the statistical analysis used from a number of biomarkers in the blood makes for what I would call compelling intellectual property.
