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| Authored by: macliam on Monday, April 01 2013 @ 07:49 PM EDT |
The month of April brings the Oral Argument in Association for Molecular
Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. at the Supreme Court. The case is set
for argument on Monday, April 15.
There is a substantial amount of
material available on the case page at SCOTUSblog. This includes a timetable,
all the petitioner, respondent and amici briefs, together with a series of
articles commissioned and posted on SCOTUSblog a few months ago.
The
issue is “whether human genes are patentable”. If you have any
interest in science there is plenty of interest. Those on the side of Science
and against patenting of isolated DNA from human chromosomes include Professors
James D. Watson (co-discoverer of the DNA helix) and Eric S. Lander (MIT, one of
the principal leaders of the Human Genome Project). And plenty of other
interesting briefs.
CLS bank (plaintiff in CLS v. Alice,
currently being considered en banc by the Federal Circuit) have a brief,
asking that the opinion of the Supreme Court should treat “laws of nature,
natural phenomena and abstract ideas” on an equal footing, rather than
confining their dicta to products of nature.
And the Intellectual
Property lobby are out in force. This is a key case for them, because the
outcome could invalidate thousands of patents on human gene sequences (or on the
‘isolated DNA’ that embodies these sequences). Indeed they claim
patents on purified products extracted from the human body, and claim that such
patents are essential to their businesses. So they have a lot to lose. Whilst
briefs may quote the texts of judgements stating that “laws of nature,
natural phenomena, and abstract ideas” cannot be patented, it is clear
that, for them, these exceptions should be confined as narrowly as possible,
only to natural products in their natural state. It is clear that they make no
distinction between scientific discovery and ‘invention’ and demand
patent protection, it seems, for any natural product ‘isolated’ from
the body, even if that amounts to merely purifying the product without
chemically modifying it. They really do believe that “anything under the
sun” that might have some use should be patentable, irrespective of
whether it was actually “made by man”.
If people are not
fully familiar with the science of DNA, the genetic code, the process of
abstraction, the way that RNA works etc., there is plenty of informative
material in briefs on both sides. Because there are briefs on both sides of the
argument that make a sincere and substantial effort to give the Supreme Court
Justices well-written accounts of the basic science.
One thing that the
Supreme Court must presumably decide is precisely where the boundary between
unpatentable products of nature and patentable manufactures lies. Consider the
following sequence:
- DNA embedded in chromosomes in the human
body
- Cell-free DNA found in fragments in blood plasma etc.
- DNA
separated from other cellular matter by a process known as
‘lysis’
- “Isolated DNA” formed by splitting up
the DNA extracted through lysis
- So-called cDNA formed by a translation
process DNA->RNA->cDNA that removes non-coding base sequences from the DNA
fragment, to yield a DNA fragment that encodes for the same protein as the
original isolated DNA
- rDNA or recombinant DNA, formed by genetic
engineering.
It is generally agreed that the first is an unpatentable
product of nature, and that the last qualifies as a manufacture, as essentially
decided by Diamond v. Chakrabarty. But where precisely the Supreme Court
draw the line will give a good idea as to where they stand on products derived
from natural materials. And it will show how seriously they take the
judicially-created exceptions to patentability: is one just free to contemplate
them, or can one make obvious uses of them without patent infringement? [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: SilverWave on Monday, April 01 2013 @ 09:30 PM EDT |
Feedly gains 3M new
users after Google's RSS
death warrant, plans paid
subscriptions
Android:Titles view makes
it all work for me :-)---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: SilverWave on Monday, April 01 2013 @ 09:39 PM EDT |
Interesting take on things from an insider...
WinFS,
Integrated/Unified Storage, and Microsoft –
Part 4
Tag Archives:
WinFS---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 01 2013 @ 11:23 PM EDT |
TechCrunch ..So to show
off what game developers can do with a modern browser and without plugins today,
Mozilla and Epic teamed up a little while ago to port Unreal Engine 3 to the
web, something that was unthinkable back in 2011... [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Gringo_ on Monday, April 01 2013 @ 11:28 PM EDT |
This is serious science. Can a sea lion keep a beat?
Watch the
video...
Link [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 02 2013 @ 02:43 AM EDT |
ReDigi's defense hinged upon its argument that
digital files are
covered under the "first-sale doctrine",
which states that a legitimate
purchaser of a copyrighted
work has the right to sell that item to someone
else,
irrespective of the copyright owner's wishes.
To add weight to that
claim, ReDigi supplied its users with
a Marketplace app that purported not only
to verify that
each music track offered for sale had been legitimately
purchased, but to delete music files from sellers' PCs once
their transactions
closed.
"In this way, ReDigi gives digital goods 'physicality,'
bringing
the familiar process of selling a physical good
(CD, vinyl, book, etc.) into
the digital age," the company
argued in its legal disclaimer.
But in an
18-page ruling on Saturday, District Judge Richard
J. Sullivan found that
despite the technical measures it had
erected, ReDigi's service infringed on
copyright owners'
exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute their
works
[...]
ReDigi issued a statement on the matter. In short, the
company said it is "disappointed" with Judge Sullivan's
ruling, but pointed
out that the ruling only pertains to the
earlier version of ReDigi's service,
dubbed "ReDigi 1.0."
The new 2.0 version is based on different, patent-pending
technology, the company said, and as such is not a subject
of the current
lawsuit.
"ReDigi will continue to keep its ReDigi 2.0 service running
and
will appeal the ReDigi 1.0 decision, while supporting
the fundamental rights of
lawful digital consumers," the
company said.
Neil McAllister, The Register[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 02 2013 @ 05:39 AM EDT |
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In which the copy of 'The Boss', who became 'The Dark Lord of SCO'
makes
a return...
Help Desk
Just about died
laughing.
Waynehttp://madhatter.ca [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 02 2013 @ 07:03 AM EDT |
I'm very disappointed about the extremely low number of
April Fool's Jokes which were published on Groklaw this
year. :-)[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: JamesK on Tuesday, April 02 2013 @ 10:36 AM EDT |
| A
fter nearly four years of taking extraordinary images of the universe, the
European Space Agency's Herschel space observatory has only weeks left before it
exhausts its supply of liquid helium coolant. ---
The following program
contains immature subject matter.
Viewer discretion is advised. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 02 2013 @ 11:23 AM EDT |
| "India's top court dismissed Swiss drug maker Novartis AG's attempt to win
patent protection for its cancer drug Glivec, a blow to Western pharmaceutical
firms targeting India to drive sales and a victory for local makers of cheap
generics. link [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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