2009 Nobel Ribosome Structures — Patented

tabascoj writes 'The announcement of this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry is the latest reminder that fundamental components of biology are being increasingly, and aggressively, patented. A commentary, from yalepatents.org, focuses on the research and subsequent patents, held by Yale and Thomas Steitz, one of this year's laureates.'

Not Very Noble

[sexconker]

Insert tired old joke about Nobel/Noble.

In Nobel's own words:
"The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind."

Seems to me someone shouldn't win for doing something that benefits their pocket books first, and mankind second.

Angry emails to the Nobel Foundation, GO!

Postal address: The Nobel Foundation
P.O. Box 5232, SE-102 45 Stockholm, Sweden
Street address: Sturegatan 14, Stockholm
Tel. [phone]
Fax [phone]
E-mail [e-mail]
[e-mail]

Patent

[Anonymous Coward]

From reading the patent summary, it appears to claim some techniques related to x-ray crystallography. It's not a patent on ribosomes, which already existed in nature.

Re:I don't understand...

[buchner.johannes]

... cover not only the process for determining the structure of the molecules, but also the computation used to design new antibiotics.

You can not patent ideas or discoveries. But you can patent applications/machines. And if you live in a weird country, algorithms.

Re:patents...

[Mendokusei]

That has always been the rule. A naturally occuring phenomena is what is known as a "judicial exception," and is not eligible for patent protection.

Not as evil as author claims?

[Volante3192]

From the article, ...cover not only the process for determining the structure of the molecules, but also the computation used to design new antibiotics.

Now, this might not be saying the whole story, but it doesn't sound like the ribosomes are what's being patented (which would result in ire here). Instead, it's a technique of how to find what molecules and bindings are used by the ribosomes (or something along those lines.)

The second part, the computation, probably a little more evil, but again it's a little light on details.

I could probably do a patent search and see exactly what the abstracts are...but I doubt I could understand them without a tl;dr and a chemistry glossary.

Basically, there's undoubtedly something patentable within this process it's just a matter of making sure they've got the right thing patented. I don't see anyone patenting a gene or a molcule here so there's no "nature made this already" defense. Furthermore, I don't think anyone can exactly make an "obviousness" claim here; USPTO might be pretty lax about prior art, but I'd think the Nobel committee would be a bit more thorough about trying to locate prior research.

Before you comment...

[H0p313ss]

... at least read the summary carefully. They didn't patent the natural structures.

Re:How long

[coolsnowmen]

I'm betting that the Article doesn't list a lot of googleable knowledge.

Are you looking for something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_of_patent_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]

For applications filed on or after June 8, 1995,[1] the patent term is 20 years from the filing date of the earliest U.S. application to which priority is claimed (excluding provisional applications).[2]

Re:patents...

[matt4077]

New rule: you can not comment on something you didn't even bother to read. It's processes to find or design antibiotics targeting the ribosome that were patented, not the ribosome itself. You're creating millions of ribosomes each second, and you haven't been sued yet, have you?

Re:Not as evil as author claims?

[Anonymous Coward]

The patents include the methodology of how to purify, crystallize, and solve the structures of ribosomes. This is non-trivial as ribosomes are roughly 100 times larger than the average protein subjected to this technique, contains many different parts, not all of which are protein. The problem gets much harder the larger and more parts their are and quite frankly if it hadn't been done already I'd say that anyone attempting the project was inviting failure (why yes! I am an x-ray crystallographer!). For this massive, non-trivial, non-obvious, original work they have every right to protect and license their intellectual property as they see fit. It even isn't as though the individual researchers are getting rich off of taxpayer funded research: they'll get very little. Yale (and the lab, but mostly Yale) will get some money to do research and other campus activities. The computation part we'll see if that holds up. I haven't read the whole patent, but if they're trying to say that nobody can use the publicly available structures to try and do drug design that portion will be struck down as soon as somebody wishes to challenge it.

Posting as AC due to modding the thread.

Re:It depends entirely on investment capital ...

[Fnord666]

Remember: the primary valid purpose of patents is to allow the recapture of investment capital plus additional profits in proportion to the utility of the discovery.

I disagree.

The purpose of the patent system
The historical purpose of the patent system was to encourage the development of new inventions, and in particular to encourage the disclosure of those new inventions. Inventors are often hesitant to reveal the details of their invention, for fear that someone else might copy it. This leads to keeping inventions secret, which impedes innovation.
- Ius mentis

On Thomas Jefferson
For Jefferson the purpose of the patent office was to promulgate invention, not protect them. These two reasons are why he formulated a policy for patents that encouraged invention but maintained restrictions on what could be patented. Thus he was able to be true to his beliefs and perform the duties foisted upon him by the Patent Act of 1790.
- www.earlyamerica.com