Music From DNA Patented

stm2 writes "Two lawyers have patented generating music from a DNA sequence. According to the patent, it covers 'music generated by decoding and transcribing genetic information within a DNA sequence into a music signal having melody and harmony.' A comment to the blog post mentions DNA-derived music being performed at a conference in 1995."

Prior Art

[Doc Ruby]

This is the kind of invention that would be worth protecting if it protected only the specific device the inventors produced to do it.

But as it happens, the patent as granted would protect them from competing with me, and anyone else whose DNA codes their bodies functionality to play a musical instrument with melody and harmony.

It's a joke, it ruins "science and the useful arts" in the name of "promoting" it, and it ruins the actual narrower right of authors/inventors to be protected for a reasonably limited time from competition stealing their investment just in time to compete with them.

But no one is talking about replacing it with something Constitutional. That would be a great invention, based on the original prior art, that should be as widely copied as possible.

Re:Uh... What?

[MightyMartian]

How would this be any different from generating music from the atomic structure of crystals, or from the x-rays being given off by a pulsar? How the fuck can you patent this? What is there to fucking patent? Christ, I wish they'd simply fine guys like this several million times their net worth or make them sign a document promising never to even go within five miles of the patent office or even think about sending in letters.

Dejavu?

[SamP2]

A good century ago or so, at the dawn of radioastronomy, there was a whole big point of "celestial music". People thought that the radio signals emitted by stars have a certain harmony, and when used right, can produce "heavenly" melody.

Needless to say that didn't go very far.

Same story here. Just because you find something which, when transformed, can generate certain audio patterns, doesn't mean it will be any good as *music*. In fact, looking for some "objective", "universal" melody source is pretty much dumb as music preference varies greatly even within our own species (*waits for rock vs rap flaming to start*), and many other species have different combinations of sound they perceive as music (and which we perceive only as noise).

Music is *produced* with a specific purpose in mind, and the production rules vary depending on that purpose. You won't find it bestowed upon you, whether from the stars or magically encoded in some DNA sequence.

Re:Uh... What?

[ushering05401]

It just makes no sense.

Translating DNA into music is a really neat concept. Translating anything that has a decipherable system to its design into another design system is rad. But why, why, why, patent it? Is it so someone else does not come along and claim credit for your innovation? I doubt it. Prior art would invalidate any later patent claims.

It just makes no sense. Please bear in mind that I write proprietary software for a living. I would never imagine attempting to prevent a competitor from providing their customers with the best product that they can produce, whether or not it resembled my product. I compete based on the quality of my product and service.

And this translation of DNA into music is not even a salable product... I agree with parent poster. This is yet another bewildering use of the patent system.

Regards.

I know, I'm gonna apply for my own patent:

[darjen]

"Method for remembering a musical sequence through notation involving a series of lines and spaces."

Re:Uh... What?

[Joe Tie.]

I'd say he's in the clear. The patent office, on the other hand, needs a good kick.

Re:Uh... What?

[TobyRush]

The music signal generated from the genetic data can be used in a variety of consumer and industrial products and methods. For example, novelty products such as greeting cards, genetic music CDs, and the like can incorporate a person's individual music generated from their own sample of DNA.

I wrote a program quite a while back which converted text files (say, The Gettysburg Address) into standard MIDI files, and for the result to be anything even remotely playable I needed to do quite a bit of normalization as part of the translation.

So if anyone uses this for greeting cards, it's going to be 1% DNA source material and 99% pre-conceived structure. I'm sure they'll market it as "this is the music that is coursing through your veins!" when in reality it's just a really expensive random-number generator. And I'd be very interested to see what happens if you send the same DNA sample in twice, say a few months apart, and compare the results (which should be identical, right?)...

Re:Prior Art

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's something interesting. The person that submitted the story did not even read the patent. The proof is quite simple. At the start of the patent is a list of prior art. This list includes:

Gena et al., Sixth International Syumposium on Electronic Art, Montreal, 1995: 83-85. XI Colloquio di Informatica Musicale, Univerista di Bologna, 1995: 203-204. http://www.artic.edu/.about.pgena/docs/CIMXI-gena- strom.pdf [artic.edu], pp. 1-2 "Musical Synthesis of DNA Sequences." cited by other.

I presume this is the self same conference mentioned in the submission. So, it was cited against the application and it was found to be novel over that and plenty of other cited prior art documents. I'm sure you could look at the file wrapper for a deeper reading of the arguments but the point is clear. The applicants and examiner were both aware that something similar was done in 1995 but that this patent has some advance over that.

Are they saying...

[AdmNaismith]

...that they cornered the market on transcribing DNA sequences into music notation in general, or by their parameters? If they are talking in general, they have no leg to stand on- there's too much prior art, fictional and practical. If they have a specific algorithm that makes a particular 'sound', it's still pretty craptacular.

Re:Uh... What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up

Re:Uh... What?

[Wiseman1024]

American patents are ridiculous. You can go as far as patenting a live being. I'll eventually find myself patented in America and sued over the usage of me. onlyinamerica.

Re:It's U.S. government corruption.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Every government is corrupt..."

When presented with evidence of government corruption, many Americans give excuses.