Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]

supremecourt.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 174 posts

Re: Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]

#131

Post by Symmetry »

andrewfong wrote: post #63
rvkennedy wrote: post #31

Does this mean that someone born with synthetic DNA is guilty of infringement if they have children? Do they need to buy a licence to keep living? Perhaps as a compromise, the court can decide that they count as three fifths of a person.

That's an interesting scenario given the recent ruling in Bowman v. Monsanto. If planting the offspring of synthetic Monsanto seeds infringes Monsanto's patents, then by extension, conceiving the offspring of a person with synthetic DNA could infringe patents as well. In practice, this would be limited by the 14th Amendment. The prohibition against slavery trumps patent law, period. But I'm curious how far biotech co…

It's possible that conceiving in those circumstances could be copyright infringement, but that's just a civil tort. So the parents might get sued for lots of money, but there wouldn't be any claims against the child. I don't see how slavery enters into it.

I'd hope that a court would hold differently with human reproduction than Bowman v. Monsanto, but even if they don't it wouldn't be anything to do with the 13th Amendment.

Re: Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]

#132

Post by carbocation »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #46

While its not a complete win I think this is an ok compromise. Clearly Myriad is going to be impacted as other people come up with ways to test for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes without infringing on their process, and it will make screening for these genes much less expensive. But it leaves open the question of "infringement" on cDNA when you aren't party to the creation. Specifically the guys who have GMO Wheat growing…

I do not see how there is any cDNA involved in a plant that has modified genes.

Are you assuming that the plant is infected with a retrovirus?

A genome with a modified gene is not cDNA, and I'm not sure how to parse your comment so I'm basically trying to see if there was an error in your comment or an error in my reading of it.

Re: Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]

#133

Post by dnautics »

daughart wrote: post #115
dnautics wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure prior art doesn't work that way.

Isn't the standard here whether or not these molecules exist in nature? Honest question.

You can't just assert that it exists. You'd have to show that it exists.

Re: Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]

#134

Post by tptacek »

vaadu wrote: post #73
wavefunction wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's consistent, which is about the only nice thing I'd want to say about him.

Your ignorance is staggering. He voted that the police should not be permitted to take your DNA just because you were arrested. He voted that government should not be permitted to take your property and give it to another private entity because it will generate higher taxes. He voted that the police should not be permitted to enter your property with drug sniffing dogs without a warrant. He voted that authorities sca…

"Seldom has an opinion of this Court rested so obviously upon nothing but the personal views of its members", said Scalia when the court found it unconstitutional to execute the profoundly mentally disabled.

"If it were impossible for individual human beings (or groups of human beings) to act autonomously in effective pursuit of a common goal, the game of soccer would not exist", he said, when the court found it unconstitutional for the VMI to refuse admission to women.

"This ruling will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed [...] The nation will live to regret what the court has done today" he said when the court held that Guantanamo detainees have the right to appeal their captivity to federal courts.

"Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to determine where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited in the Constitution?" he said, under obvious circumstances.

"Today's opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda" he said, in attempting to retain a law that criminalized same-sex relationships in Texas.

Re: Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]

#135

Post by djcapelis »

eldude wrote: post #48
rvkennedy wrote: post #31

Does this mean that someone born with synthetic DNA is guilty of infringement if they have children? Do they need to buy a licence to keep living? Perhaps as a compromise, the court can decide that they count as three fifths of a person.

A historical correction to the misplaced tone of your 3/5ths reference, the 3/5ths compromise was by the anti-slavery republican north to prevent the southern democratic slavers from dominating the House of Representatives and the electoral college.[1] [1] http://www.redstate.com/jeffdunetz/2010/07/18/were-our-found...

For whatever it's worth, the 3/5ths number originally came from negotiations over modifying the original government documents of the united states: the articles of confederation where the question was whether or not slaves would count for the purposes of taxation. When the constitutional convention came around and the same debate showed up again, except now instead of taxation the question was representation, the proponents flipped positions but the 3/5ths number ended up getting picked up once again. Plus a ban on slave importation was set for 20 years in the future, which is a portion of the compromise often ignored in retrospect. (Mostly because it turned out not to be as effective as people hoped.)

The main thrust of your argument is absolutely correct though, in that the northern folks generally argued that slaves were treated as property (and so should be taxed as such) and the southern folks generally argued that they should count as people. (And should be represented as such.)

No one seemed to get to the idea that if you were going to count someone for the purposes of representation, maybe you also had to let them vote. That would have also brought up interesting questions around the disenfranchisement of various other classes of people, namely women, some white men without property and freed slaves right from the start. Instead we had to wait a long time to start solving those problems.

Politics can be weird.

Re: Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]

#136

Post by dnautics »

daughart wrote: post #112
dnautics wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can you link to this previous decision?

"In Chakrabarty, scientists added four plasmids to a bacte- rium, which enabled it to break down various components of crude oil. 447 U. S., at 305, and n. 1. The Court held that the modified bacterium was patentable." Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U. S. 303, 309 (1980), If I am reading this correctly. EDIT: Sorry I re-read my original comment - I meant "synthetic modifications", not necessarily only to DNA, but to nat…

I think I was confused because you meant "patentable", not "patented".

But is not isolation by PCR a synthetic modification? If I made a useful machine out of a single piece of wood using a six-axis subtractive tooling device, would you argue that the machine is unpatentable because "it was already there"?

PCR actually goes even further - conceptually it's subtractive procedure but it actually does so by creating copies within the specific boundaries. These boundaries don't exist in nature, the act of specifying the boundaries is creative, and without the prior research, non-obvious.

Re: Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]

#137

Post by tanzam75 »

eldude wrote: post #48
rvkennedy wrote: post #31

Does this mean that someone born with synthetic DNA is guilty of infringement if they have children? Do they need to buy a licence to keep living? Perhaps as a compromise, the court can decide that they count as three fifths of a person.

A historical correction to the misplaced tone of your 3/5ths reference, the 3/5ths compromise was by the anti-slavery republican north to prevent the southern democratic slavers from dominating the House of Representatives and the electoral college.[1] [1] http://www.redstate.com/jeffdunetz/2010/07/18/were-our-found...

> ... the anti-slavery republican north to prevent the southern democratic slavers ...

The party system did not form until George Washington's first term. There were certainly factions, but nothing like the "Republican" or "Democratic" parties of today.

When the party system began during George Washington's first term, the two parties were called the "Federalist" and the "Democratic-Republican" parties. New England was primarily Federalist. The Mid-Atlantic and Southern states were primarily Democratic-Republican.

The Democratic-Republican Party is, in some sense, the ancestor of both major political parties today. The Democratic-Republican Party split into the Democratic Party and the National Republican Party after the 1824 election. This division forms the basis of the two major political parties we have today. (With several messy breakups, reunions, splinterings, and Third Parties.)

Re: Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]

#138

Post by wavefunction »

vaadu wrote: post #73
wavefunction wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's consistent, which is about the only nice thing I'd want to say about him.

Your ignorance is staggering. He voted that the police should not be permitted to take your DNA just because you were arrested. He voted that government should not be permitted to take your property and give it to another private entity because it will generate higher taxes. He voted that the police should not be permitted to enter your property with drug sniffing dogs without a warrant. He voted that authorities sca…

I thought about saying something very rude to you about me being entitled to my opinion, but I won't.

Re: Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]

#139

Post by daughart »

dnautics wrote: post #136
daughart wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In Chakrabarty, scientists added four plasmids to a bacte- rium, which enabled it to break down various components of crude oil. 447 U. S., at 305, and n. 1. The Court held that the modified bacterium was patentable." Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U. S. 303, 309 (1980), If I am reading this correctly. EDIT: Sorry I re-read my original comment - I meant "synthetic modifications", not necessarily only to DNA, but to nat…

I think I was confused because you meant "patentable", not "patented". But is not isolation by PCR a synthetic modification? If I made a useful machine out of a single piece of wood using a six-axis subtractive tooling device, would you argue that the machine is unpatentable because "it was already there" ? PCR actually goes even further - conceptually it's subtractive procedure but it actually does so by creating co…

Yes, sorry I meant patentable. This ruling specifically says that merely identifying the location of a gene and isolating it is not a patentable transformation. PCR is not transformative because the dsDNA molecule exists in nature. I think in this context isolation is similar in nature to discovery, which is not a patentable activity.

Re: Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]

#140

Post by daughart »

dnautics wrote: post #133
daughart wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the standard here whether or not these molecules exist in nature? Honest question.

You can't just assert that it exists. You'd have to show that it exists.

That should be trivial, if you had a large sample and money for sequencing. The consensus in the listservs I'm on is that cDNA patentability will fall next because of these and other inconsistencies (cDNA existing in nature, being a non-natural transformation).
Post reply on HN