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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

#141

Post by teddyh »

zamalek wrote: post #99
mirimir wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree with Cyph0n that patents can promote innovation. But "prior art" ought to be defined sanely. If something has been well known in India for thousands of years, how can some multinational patent it? How can some chemical that occurs in nature be patented? And then there's the whole universe of stuff that's different by one atom over there, and so deemed patentable.

Possibly, patent should have some minimal effort time. After, say, 3 years you have to demonstrably prove that you will take the patent to market. For example, a software product should have some code written that uses the patent, even if incomplete. So long as you do nothing with the patent, anyone can get a royalty free license to it when they challenge you (after the grace period). This would encourage people to t…

You can game “taking an innovation to market” any number of ways. Making the product unrealistically expensive. Only manufacturing a very limited number, or even a single, item. Making an item that technically uses the patent but is in a very different sort of field than any product which would be actually useful. Making the actual product practically unusable, or hideously ugly, or horribly uncomfortable.

These are all things which normally would be solved by competition in the marketplace, but you don’t have competition, since a patent is a monopoly. So you have to solve all these problems some other way.

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#142

Post by hibikir »

searine wrote: post #124
amelius wrote: post #66

Does this mean that Monsanto's patents are also invalid?

No. Monsanto created novel genes, based on real ones.

Monsanto patents are more complicated than that though, as you can see by searching the USPTO. The enzyme is patented, the genes that produce it are patented, the introduction of those genes into a specific cultivar are patented, and crossings between their varieties and any other variety are patented. So, even if one of the patents was invalidated, the rest would still make it pretty difficult to commercialize anything.

Say you get the DNA sequence that will provide enzymes to protect from glyphosphate, and the patent is invalidated. You still have to introduce that sequence to a bacteria, introduce it into a plant in a way that expresses the gene, and then do enough crossings to make sure it doesn't interfere with the rest of the plant's functions.

So, even from the Monsanto patent, it's probably 8 years of work before you can sell anything. And by then, the market has moved forward.

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#143

Post by refurb »

298219640 wrote: post #30
kybernetyk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but no university can afford to take the research results, make a cure from it and bring it to market. The regulatory overhead literally devours billions of dollars to get a new medicine approved. And if a company can not expect to have some exclusive rights on that for at least a few years no one is going to spend that money. Competitors could just take your medicine, copy it and sell for lower because they had…

Odds are the "make a cure from it" part would be a human invention and therefore patentable. And even if all "cures" are no longer patentable - society wants cures to diseases. So if the system isn't delivering cures society will change the approval system[1]. It's not like the current approval process was handed down from god on stone tablets. 1) Or change patent law to cover discoveries from nature.

Odds are the "make a cure from it" part would be a human invention and therefore patentable.

That's a use patent and it's inferior to a composition patent.

Look at what's happening to Pfizer in the UK. They had a use patent on Lyrica, but no composition patent on it. That means anyone is free to make the drug. You can't really stop a doctor from using a drug for a certain disease if it's freely available.

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#144

Post by CamperBob2 »

oldmanjay wrote: post #121
CamperBob2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Counterexample: how did the Internet and WWW ever evolve without a significant reliance on patents? How did the software industry in general ever flourish? The best we can say from empirical observation is that patents don't lead to guaranteed failure. We certainly can't say they're necessary.

If everything that could have been patented was patented, we'd all be poorer for it. Except the lawyers, of course.

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#145

Post by thaumasiotes »

refurb wrote: post #84
thaumasiotes wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think drug development is one of the strongest cases for a patent system. However: > many people would be unemployed This isn't an argument at all. It's better for people to be unemployed than to be employed in an enterprise that makes everyone else worse off. > and there would thus be no incentive to even develop new drugs Of course there would. We had drug development before we had patents.

Of course there would. We had drug development before we had patents. Really? Can you provide an example? From what I understand patents started in the US shortly after formation of the country. The first drugs discovered didn't happen until the late 1800's. In fact, the names of many of these drugs were "Dr. Smith's patented flu medication".

Some selections from Wikipedia:

> Later in his life [before 200 BC], Qin Shi Huang feared death and desperately sought the fabled elixir of life, which would supposedly allow him to live forever. He was obsessed with acquiring immortality and fell prey to many who offered him supposed elixirs.

> The ostensible goals of alchemy are often given as the transmutation of common metals into gold (known as chrysopoeia), the creation of a panacea, and the discovery of a universal solvent.

(emphasis mine)

> Plant extracts, including willow bark and spiraea, of which salicylic acid was the active ingredient, had been known to help alleviate headaches, pains, and fevers since antiquity. The father of modern medicine, Hippocrates (circa 460 – 377 BC), left historical records describing the use of powder made from the bark and leaves of the willow tree to help these symptoms.

All of that is drug development. In the case of willow bark extract, it was successful drug development. But I'm not going to blame the people of 200 BC for being technically less adept than the people of today. If they'd had the knowledge and tools we have, they would have done their development from that base.

Snake oil was named "Dr. Smith's Patented Flu Medication" to give the impression that the government officially vouched for its effectiveness, not in gratitude to the patent system.

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#146

Post by dogma1138 »

epmatsw wrote: post #81
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…

I think that's a misleading question. I don't think anyone is arguing that all innovation would go away if the patent system was removed. However, it seems possible that innovations that require high initial investment and low ongoing costs (medications, gene patents, etc.) would be produced at a lower rate if the incentives the current system provides were removed.

I'm actually wondering how much of the R&D effort stems from actual reverse engineering of the medicine and how much is simply done by reading the patent. Chemistry is quite complicated if you break down the pill into it's basic components it won't tell you much. Even if you manage to isolate the active molecule you still will have to figure out the chemical process to make it and in a safe manner. Chemical patents tend to be quite long because it's quite a complicated manner, and all of them have a full description of how the compound was identified, how it's made, and how it's delivered.

Now many drugs are also not as complicated as some people might think, the majority of the work that drug companies do it pretty much see what works for what, however for the complicated stuff that they actually R&D from the ground up the patents might be an actual liability when it comes to reverse engineering when they cannot use the law to enforce it.

As for the money, as long as rich people get sick drug companies will continue to do research, allot of the money for the research also comes from government grants and not from investments drug companies would rather produce drugs for illnesses that affect as many people as possible and drugs that combat the symptoms and not the cause where ever possible if we want to be completely cynical about it because that's what would yield them the most amount of money.

If government and private grants weren't available all we'll get in a cynical world would be common cold and cold sore medicine that doesn't really combat either viruses just prevents us from coughing and treats the sores. And that is almost the world we are living in because drug companies and investors won't be dumping resources into some obscure syndrome that affects 800 people in the US, for that we have the sick billionaires son and the sick nephew of a senator's best friend to thank for.

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#147

Post by mirimir »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #71
mirimir wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are excellent points. There's no doubt that multinationals have gamed the global patent, copyright and trademark systems. On the other hand, it is plausible that the possibility of limited monopoly would promote innovation. But how would one measure costs vs benefits?

It's arguable that limited monopoly promotes the first innovation. But it should be obvious, it prevents all the possible third party innovations that riff off the first. It's easy to miss the dog that didn't bark, or the improvement that couldn't be sold.

That is an excellent point.

The key, then, would be to distinguish and reward such primary innovation. Maybe it's obvious when you see it. Or maybe do some Bates thing with panels of experts.

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#148

Post by mirimir »

dougabug wrote: post #138
JulianMorrison wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's arguable that limited monopoly promotes the first innovation. But it should be obvious, it prevents all the possible third party innovations that riff off the first. It's easy to miss the dog that didn't bark, or the improvement that couldn't be sold.

There's also the question of inequality. Granting monopolies exacerbates inequality, so a hypothetical short term boost to productivity growth might not translate into meaningfully better quality of life for most people. Government engineered barriers to competitive use of specific ideas could undermine the bargaining power of workers, and artificially inflate or support prices of key goods. It seems like an innovati…

Indeed. What comes to mind are farmers who depend on highly tweaked crops to survive, but who are forbidden (or prevented by design) from even saving seeds. Let alone trying to improve the strain.

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#149

Post by mirimir »

mindcrime wrote: post #116
mirimir wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree with Cyph0n that patents can promote innovation. But "prior art" ought to be defined sanely. If something has been well known in India for thousands of years, how can some multinational patent it? How can some chemical that occurs in nature be patented? And then there's the whole universe of stuff that's different by one atom over there, and so deemed patentable.

I tend to agree with Cyph0n that patents can promote innovation. They can also inhibit innovation. Something to consider...

Right. So maybe the key distinction is that breakthrough patents tend to promote innovation, but follow-on patents tend to inhibit innovation.

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#150

Post by mirimir »

mirimir wrote: post #59
dougabug wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question should not be whether you believe that it is possible for patents to promote innovation. Rather can you prove based on evidence that they clearly and irrefutably, in fact, do so? Do patents ever harm or retard innovation? Is it economically worth the burden of the patent system for the benefit achieved, or are there better alternatives? Moreover, how much theoretical economic payoff justifies surrenderin…

Those are excellent points. There's no doubt that multinationals have gamed the global patent, copyright and trademark systems. On the other hand, it is plausible that the possibility of limited monopoly would promote innovation. But how would one measure costs vs benefits?

Such as TPP: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10363500
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