Patenting Life

// February 15th, 2007 // Business & Politics, Security & Privacy

PatentMichael Crichton has an interesting op-ed in the New York Times discussing what has become among the most egregious abuse of the underfunded US Patent Office and their penchant for rubber stamping most patent applications that come across their desk, regardless of the true originality, merit, or social value of the claim.

Companies now hold gene patents for the genes that compose common diseases, such as Hepatitis. This stifles research as scientists who would otherwise devote energy to researching cures are dissuaded by the sometimes huge licensing fees that must be paid to the owners of the patent to conduct their research.

People die because of this, as Crichton points out. He cites proposed legislation to nullify prior gene patents and prevent the future patenting of genes but the only reference I could find to a similarly titled piece of legislation died in Congress 3 years ago. If anyone can find evidence that the legislation is on the docket for the current Congressional session, please comment and provide a citation.

4 Responses to “Patenting Life”

  1. Jase Smith says:
    February 15, 2007 at 10:20 am

    Hey, good stuff, I saw the article too. Pretty messed up stuff. I also saw this guy talking about it on his privacy blog http://www.globalpov.com. I thought he made a good point about this:

    “We have lost our way. Just like copyright law has become a wealth creation device for the already wealthy, so has patent law become something that big companies use to squash the little guy. IBM, for instance, has over 40,000 patents. The much venerated Thomas Edison only had 1093 patents in his lifetime.”

    http://www.globalpov.com/archives/2007/02/post_44.html

    Stay on this issue, I think it’s going to be a big one.

  2. Jase Smith says:
    February 15, 2007 at 10:23 am

    Sorry. I used my old address before I switched it up :-D

    The comment was:

    Hey, good stuff, I saw the article too. Pretty messed up stuff. I also saw this guy talking about it on his privacy blog http://www.globalpov.com. I thought he made a good point about this:

    “We have lost our way. Just like copyright law has become a wealth creation device for the already wealthy, so has patent law become something that big companies use to squash the little guy. IBM, for instance, has over 40,000 patents. The much venerated Thomas Edison only had 1093 patents in his lifetime.”

    http://www.globalpov.com/archives/2007/02/post_44.html

    Stay on this issue, I think it’s going to be a big one.

  3. Andrew Chin says:
    February 15, 2007 at 7:12 pm

    Crichton’s knowledge of patent law is spotty, but he’s on the right side of the debate. For a more detailed discussion, please see my blog.

  4. Matt says:
    March 29, 2007 at 7:17 am

    More evidence of the US Patent office run-amok…

    http://www.uspto.gov/main/homepagenews/bak2007mar15.htm

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