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Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

arstechnica.com

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Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#121

Post by oldmanjay »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #28
Cyph0n wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have lived thousands of years without refrigeration.

Refrigeration is an excellent example of something that could have easily been developed and refined without patent protection. Consumers win when innovators compete with each other. Patents replace market competition with a foot race.

and yet somehow we have more technical innovation now than we ever did outside of a patent system.

there is a lot of emotional and assertive speculation around this issue but all of the hard facts that are available very strongly suggest patents work despite occasional (if highly publicized) conflict. how does your theory accommodate that fact?

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#122

Post by thescriptkiddie »

rayiner wrote: post #95
icanhackit wrote: post #75

Looking at some of the for and against arguments regarding patents, let's play a mental game: would new, valuable things still be created if the patent system didn't exist? I think yes. The creator wouldn't necessarily benefit directly, but in a way we all indirectly benefit from new technology and ideas. Much the same as it would be better for the poor to have free or affordable essential health care, our society wo…

The question is: what kind of valuable things would still be produced? You'll still get iPhones, but will you get ARM cores or Snapdragon chipsets or LTE or MPEG4 or pills that cure Hep-C? The bigger picture is that almost all hard R&D takes place under the umbrella of some sort of protection from copying. Intel spends billions a year on semiconductor R&D, and protects it with trade secrets. Pharma companies spend bi…

> protects it with trade secrets

Trade secrets, unlike patents and copyrights, are not a legal construct. They're just things you aren't telling anyone.

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#123

Post by ihodes »

matt_heimer wrote: post #120
ihodes wrote: post #114

An odd title; this patent was already struck down by the Supreme Court of the USA in 2013[0]. Now it's no longer valid in Australia. The cost of tests for BRCA1/2 mutations is dropping dramatically; were the medical apparatus of the USA not so drastically broken, the cost to consumers of this test would today cost the consumer around $50 US. This is thanks largely to the ACLU and some geneticists in NYC, including Ha…

Does anyone know how the medical test at the heart of this legal issue compares to something like the raw data from 23andme? 23andme v4 gives you 25 SNPs for BRCA1 and BRCA2.

A comprehensive test looking at the BRCAs may deeply sequence sequence the entire gene(s); spanning around 150 thousand base pairs. You'd not only want to look for SNPs, but novel SNVs, and various structural variants (SVs) and copy-number variants (CNVs). I don't know the most common class of mutations for BRCA1 and 2, so it may be the case that a smaller, cheaper panel could be nearly as effective as well.

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#125

Post by josaka »

mirimir wrote: post #10

Now, if we can just agree that natural products and traditional cures can't be patented. India has been fighting hard for that.

In the US, "laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patentable." See Mayo v. Prometheus (https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=505607866460473...)

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#126

Post by toomuchtodo »

rayiner wrote: post #95
icanhackit wrote: post #75

Looking at some of the for and against arguments regarding patents, let's play a mental game: would new, valuable things still be created if the patent system didn't exist? I think yes. The creator wouldn't necessarily benefit directly, but in a way we all indirectly benefit from new technology and ideas. Much the same as it would be better for the poor to have free or affordable essential health care, our society wo…

The question is: what kind of valuable things would still be produced? You'll still get iPhones, but will you get ARM cores or Snapdragon chipsets or LTE or MPEG4 or pills that cure Hep-C? The bigger picture is that almost all hard R&D takes place under the umbrella of some sort of protection from copying. Intel spends billions a year on semiconductor R&D, and protects it with trade secrets. Pharma companies spend bi…

I want to point out that SpaceX doesn't patent any of their tech, as their competitors are sovereign states that would have no problem copying the technology.

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#127

Post by dragonwriter »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #126
rayiner wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is: what kind of valuable things would still be produced? You'll still get iPhones, but will you get ARM cores or Snapdragon chipsets or LTE or MPEG4 or pills that cure Hep-C? The bigger picture is that almost all hard R&D takes place under the umbrella of some sort of protection from copying. Intel spends billions a year on semiconductor R&D, and protects it with trade secrets. Pharma companies spend bi…

I want to point out that SpaceX doesn't patent any of their tech, as their competitors are sovereign states that would have no problem copying the technology.

Boeing is a sovereign state?

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#128

Post by legohead »

mcv wrote: post #112

Did Myriad really claim to own the gene itself as their invention? If so, there are a lot of people who'd probably like to sue them for infecting them with that invention. It seems to me that all Myriad could possibly patent, is a unique detection method for that gene. But that wouldn't stop anyone from using a different detection method. But what interests me more about this case is that the article expects an Austr…

The article mentions that the US Supreme Court already denied them a patent. The fact another well-developed country has denied them solidifies the ruling.

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#129

Post by toomuchtodo »

dragonwriter wrote: post #127
toomuchtodo wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to point out that SpaceX doesn't patent any of their tech, as their competitors are sovereign states that would have no problem copying the technology.

Boeing is a sovereign state?

Oh come now. Boeing and the ULA are not SpaceX competitors. They're a last gasp attempt to keep the existing pork/gravy train of cost plus contracting and congressional district graft in place.

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#130

Post by dragonwriter »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #129
dragonwriter wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boeing is a sovereign state?

Oh come now. Boeing and the ULA are not SpaceX competitors. They're a last gasp attempt to keep the existing pork/gravy train of cost plus contracting and congressional district graft in place.

> Boeing and the ULA are not SpaceX competitors. They're a last gasp attempt to keep the existing pork/gravy train of cost plus contracting and congressional district graft in place.

No, Boeing and the other ULA members (both as ULA and separately) are SpaceX competitors for (particularly) government contract work, what you call "congressional district graft" is part of the game they play to maximize the value and duration of those contracts (to make them politically hard to curtail), but aren't what they exist to support -- you've got what is being served and what is serving reversed.

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