2009 Nobel Ribosome Structures — Patented 168
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.'
This is sick! (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the world coming to?
I don't understand... (Score:3, Insightful)
How can you patent something that nature already patented itself millions of years ago? Hasn't the patent run out yet?!
patents... (Score:4, Insightful)
New rule: you can not patent anything that you yourself did not create. No patents should be granted for any component of a naturally occuring system. Create an entirely novel system that doesn't exist in nature? Fine, have at it. On a separate note, it seems to me that with all the trouble we seem to be having with our 200+ year old patent system, that we ought to be able to devise a better system for encouraging innovation.
Re:I don't understand... (Score:3, Insightful)
It takes significant R&D to determine these structures and it seems that the patent office considers the discovery of a pre-existing biological component to be deserving of protection as much as a designed system for that very reason. It's indicative that we really should get around to reforming the patent system.
They should strip the Nobels.... (Score:2, Insightful)
... from anyone who patents what they won them for. The prizes should reward altruism, not greed.
Re:How (Score:5, Insightful)
Misleading Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't understand... (Score:4, Insightful)
It takes even more to visit other planets. Should Mars become the patented intellectual property of the people running the Mars rover program?
The significant R&D is irrelevant to the patent process. A guy inventing things at his kitchen table with coat hanger wire is more eligible for a patent than someone who discovers the workings of nature.
We should reform the patent system.
Re:This is sick! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How is this ethical? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, it's an evil evil broken system.
Re:Patent (Score:4, Insightful)
Except this is much more complex than just cut and paste. You can't patent, say, a person blowing air into glass for the purposes of shaping but you can patent a machine that performs the same operation.
The problem with this blog post is the author seems more bent on proclaiming "they patented this, patents are bad, therefore this is bad" rather than saying what parts of the patents are bad. There's obviously something novel in what was accomplished here. USPTO might be ignorant to prior art, but I doubt the Nobel committees are as lax.
Plus reading the patent abstracts don't do me much good either; I lack the necessary background to make any heads or tails of them. (Hell, I can't tell the diff between an -ane and an -ene without a cheat sheet.)
What I can tell is they're not patenting the ribosomes or any resulting compound created, but instead some method of isolating and analyzing them. This at least opens the door for a patent and is what the patent system was designed to protect. We have a methodology now that blue chip pharmecuticals are taking advantage of hand over fist but would never have gone through the risk of actually pioneering; it makes sense to have some of that trickle down to the people that actually created the process so they can continue research and make more breakthroughs (and allow the cycle to begin anew).
Re:Not Very Noble (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that from the quote form Nobel, the benefit to pockets of the inventors does not factor into it.
The piece of the sentence
states that
i) that the prize should be distributed annually
ii) some logistics dealing with the estate.
So Nobel's statement is, in essence, that we should give the Nobel prize to those who, in the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind.
In comparing two discoveries we need to compare their relative benefit to mankind; the benefit of the individual is completely and utterly irrelevant. That is, it is irrelevant if the individual (or individuals) benefited more than mankind as a whole; nor does it matter when comparing the two discoveries which group made "more" out of their discovery pre-Nobel prize. Nobel's sentiment is solely concerned with the benefit to mankind.
To be blantent and explicit about it, pretend for a moment that "benefit" was an actual quantifiable measure. It is not, but we can still look at the logical structure of the statement. If we have two discoveries A and B with
A: mankind benefit: 500 personal gain: 800
B: mankind benefit: 505 personal gain: 2000
then "B" has greater benefit to mankind of these two discoveries. The last column is completely irrelevant. (BTW, personal gain will probably always exceed mankind benefit as the scientists gain the same benefit you or I would, plus whatever recognition etc. in their field, other prizes, awards, grants, etc. The only way I could see personal gain being less is if the personal sacrafices involved were worse than all the other benefits to the individual).
If you wish to argue that a patented discovery lessens the value to mankind as a whole, by all means go ahead. But the argument that you have presented simply does not hang together -- Nobel makes no comment (at least with the quote you have provided) about the discoverer's personal gain.
PS. If you did want to argue about something mentioned in Nobel's statement, it is that Nobel prizes typically don't go within a year of a device conferring the greatest benefit to mankind.
Re:How is this ethical? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not as evil as author claims? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Patent (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem with this patent is enforement. How can they prove that you used the Steitz ribosome structure to design your new drug and not, say, the Cate structure, or the Ramashandran structure? If anything, real science would be utilizing all of the available data, comparing and contrasting bacterial and human ribosomes to determine which sites are relevant for antibiotics.
The coordinates are publicly available, anyway, so I could run MD on the structure for 1 picosecond and i would have "my" structure, which would be an interesting legal case in its own right.
I can't find the time to read the entire patent, but in the abstract, the "methods" they claim are used on a daily basis by groups around the world. And have been for the better part of four years.
To Summarize (Score:3, Insightful)
You could have stopped right there.
Re:How is this ethical? (Score:4, Insightful)
The question here is should you be able to patent the DNA itself? You didn't design it, in fact you had nothing whatsoever to do with its existence, you merely figured out how it worked - which took 20 years and millions of dollars. Obviously that effort should be rewarded, and just as obviously you can't possibly own a (very important) part of me, this not being ancient Greece or not-so-ancient USA.
Anyway, I don't think that Nobel prices should be given for patented work. After all, the whole point of the price is to reward improving humanity, but patents already supposedly do this.
Re:How is this ethical? (Score:3, Insightful)
The question here is should you be able to patent the DNA itself?
That is not the question here, though. They've patented a method to analyze ribosomes, not the ribosomes themselves.
Anyway, I don't think that Nobel prices should be given for patented work.
So, if I go check out the thread on the physics prize ( http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/10/06/1427237/Father-of-Fiber-Optics-Wins-Nobel-Prize [slashdot.org] ) I should see this argument there too?
Anyway, everything is going to be patented now regardless. Due to how cutthroat companies are, researchers have to patent simply to defend their work from people that might eventually troll them. Maybe if the patent system actually worked, you might have a case to make there, but unfortunatly researchers have to think about their work on a legal standing these days, too.
Re:Patent (Score:3, Insightful)
It's true. The only problems with the patent system right now are:
* Patents in fields that advance far more quickly than physical industries are protected for the same amount of time (e.g. software)
* Patents can be trivially modified and re-submitted in order to "renew" an existing patent (e.g. pharma industry)
* Prior art reviews and obviousness tests are poorly done, relying mostly on court challenges after the fact to resolve such issues
Resolve those three problems and you have a patent system that accomplishes the original goal: to foster the advancement of the sciences and useful arts.
I've proposed solutions here before, but to re-cap:
1) Establish a product lifecylce metric for each industry and tie patent duration to reasonable multiples of the lifecycle (e.g. 2-4 times the time it takes to design and release a new product in that industry)
2) Enhance the review process and reject far more patents on the basis of prior art.
3) Open the prior art review process up to the public after the first round approval.
4) Establish fines for those who repeatedly submit applications for patents that have prior art (not just a couple of times, but as an ongoing business practice; the goal is not to hurt individuals who make mistakes).
Re:How is this ethical? (Score:2, Insightful)
It has nothing to do with motive, it has to do with effect. If it benefits mankind it qualifies. Who cares if the person profits from it at the same time? Would you begrudge someone recognition just because it profits them in some way?
That's a sure way to cut back on advancement several tens of years or more.
Re:Not Very Noble (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How is this ethical? (Score:3, Insightful)
It has nothing to do with motive, it has to do with effect. If it benefits mankind it qualifies. Who cares if the person profits from it at the same time? Would you begrudge someone recognition just because it profits them in some way?
That's a sure way to cut back on advancement several tens of years or more.
Many on here would. It reminds me of a saying: a capitalist and a socialist are walking down the street and a man drives past in his Ferrari. The capitalist says "I hope one day I have a Ferrari like him", the socialist says "I hope one day he has to walk like me".
Re:How is this ethical? (Score:2, Insightful)
It has nothing to do with motive, it has to do with effect. If it benefits mankind it qualifies. Who cares if the person profits from it at the same time? Would you begrudge someone recognition just because it profits them in some way?
That's a sure way to cut back on advancement several tens of years or more.
Many on here would. It reminds me of a saying: a capitalist and a socialist are walking down the street and a man drives past in his Ferrari. The capitalist says "I hope one day I have a Ferrari like him", the socialist says "I hope one day he has to walk like me".
Congratulations. You have officially been indoctrinated!
Now, the socialist *might* argue that that same money could have been used to get all 3 of them a car instead so none of them would have to walk in the first place. But I guess US cable news doesn't go too heavy on the nuance.