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

supremecourt.gov

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

#91

Post by rickhanlonii »

joshmlewis wrote: post #70
michael_miller wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you meant well with your comment, but in general, it's best to avoid well-actually comments. This is one of Hacker School's core rules; they elaborate on why it's a good idea to avoid these types of comments at https://www.hackerschool.com/manual .

What you linked to wasn't the HN 'manual'? In the actual guidelines found here: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html it doesn't say anything about well actually comments. It says be smart in your discussions and don't just get opinionated, it says to present facts and actually address the thing that you're arguing over. I believe having proper arguments and discussions is one of the core things HN is about. It…

Furthermore, the character of 'well-actually' comments are that the orignal comment was close to, or intended to be close to, a certain fact, and the well-actualer is pedantically correcting the original without adding any substantial value to the conversation.

This is not what happened here. rvkennedy did not make a statement of fact, he made an off-the-cuff remark. eldude challenged the substance and tone of that remark in order to prevent further misrepresentation of the point. He corrected and clarified the remark in a clear and substal way, thus falling well outside of the 'well-actually' category.

Oh dear. I've spent way too much time reading SCOTUS rulings/blogs today.

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

#92

Post by shardling »

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…

It's interesting that you just assume the OP would take your side on those issues. If literally everyone agreed, they would not be an issue. :)

Completely orthogonally, sometimes people judge someone based on the intention behind their actions.

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

#93

Post by gnaritas »

michael_miller wrote: post #61
eldude wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I know you meant well with your comment, but in general, it's best to avoid well-actually comments. This is one of Hacker School's core rules; they elaborate on why it's a good idea to avoid these types of comments at https://www.hackerschool.com/manual .

This isn't hacker school.

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

#94

Post by shmerl »

daughart wrote: post #81
Kliment wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, no, it should not be patentable. This is entirely equivalent to a software patent.

Really? Say goodbye to the promise of synthetic biology then!

You can say goodbye to it if that will be patentable. Someone will patent all combinations - and goodbye.

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

#95

Post by Androsynth »

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.

I always thought a good compromise would be that you can sell genetically modified seeds (or eggs or whatever) but you shouldnt be able to own anything that is produced by those seeds. ie children, saplings etc

in other words, you own the process of genetically modifying an organism, not the genes.

I dont know how realistic or unrealistic this is, since ianal.

edit: someone else mentioned the monsanto ruling, which makes this idea sound unrealistic

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

#96

Post by twoodfin »

pessimizer wrote: post #76
vaadu wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you conclude that those four votes mean that nobody can think that he's vile, you're the ignorant one.

"Vile" is a pretty strong term, especially to use in a political context.

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

#98

Post by dnautics »

daughart wrote: post #83

This sets the stage for a simple way to overturn any cDNA patent. Somewhere in the body of any person infected with a retrovirus such as HIV exists a completely natural molecule of BRCA1 cDNA.

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

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

#99

Post by dnautics »

daughart wrote: post #85
dnautics wrote: post #25

I'm generally opposed to patents, but I think this decision is crazy. For starters, the patentability of a gene now depends on whether or not there's an intron in that gene? The isolated sequence doesn't exist as a molecule in nature, and the patent was a patent on that molecule. Should have been a straightforward "gene patents (the way they were done by myriad) are allowed". Keeping in mind, there are a ton of very…

This decision affirms a previous decision that synthetic modifications to DNA sequences are patented - regardless of whether they have introns. You see, the ruling suggests that the act of creating a new synthetic, modified DNA molecule (in this case without introns) is patent-able. (Not a comment on your opinion about patents, only the part about patentability relying on introns.)

can you link to this previous decision?

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

#100

Post by akiselev »

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.

IANAL (and for this hypothetical I don't think it matters) but with this SCOTUS ruling, you could argue that even though the original DNA strand was synthetic and patented, once it was injected into the embryo, nature takes over and copies and makes it its own. The very dynamic nature of mutations and sexual reproduction should (rationally) invalidate the "infringement" of reproduction. You could also argue that penalizing a child for what is unarguably random chance on the part of their parents is cruel and unusual, not to mention this would mean that the debt (licensing agreement) is essentially inherited by the child, which is illegal if not outright unconstitutional to my knowledge (i.e., unless the debt is under a joint card with the deceased, you cannot inherit their credit card debt, although the creditors get rights to part of the estate covering the debt).

Edit: Apparently Myriad patented more than just strands for the BRCA genes, including some methods and tests, which is one of the reasons their case is important to SCOTUS. With our current patent system, I think you'd have to patent a lot more than just the gene to be able to sue people over having it, especially children of genetically engineered parents.

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