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Chemicals | 545 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Chemicals
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, June 14 2013 @ 01:32 PM EDT

The human body consists of chemicals. Various chemicals that end up forming different compositions - even what we would view as the most solid, physical part - bone - is a chemical composition.

Based on my other post:

    You create a brand new chemical/chemical composition - Absolutely, Yes, it should pass basic 101 patent eligibility
However:
    There's no way you can reasonably claim the smallest slice of the dna structure of man was "created" by you!
You - unless you happen to be my father - had absolutely no role to play in my creation.

You create something that previously existed - even if you use a brand new process to do so - does not mean you "created something new".

You now have my clear position on that topic.

As for your response:

RAS won't say, because he knows any reasonable response leads logically to the fact that the ISOLATED BRCA2 gene is a man made chemical
You are mistaken. First, I made it clear I took a "no position" stance. Not because "I knew it would reasonably, logically lead to the fact that DNA should be patentable." That is your assumption as to my intent.

I did so because I actually had no position because I did not understand enough. Now that I've worked it through though: My response to a patent on a gene (any gene) still includes:

    Humans are not subject to enslavement, to own a dna/gene is to theoretically own the human that has that dna/gene in them. This is plain wrong in a Civilized Society. If patent Law does not include an exception on human body parts (and I think it does) then it absolutely should.
But now it also includes:
    The end result product is not something new - although there may have been a new process involved to get to it - and as a result, it would fail due to obviousness and prior art.
Thank you for pushing the point to force me to work through the understanding of "patenting a process". It's helped me understand even more and confirm my existing positions.

RAS

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

You know that and I know that.
Authored by: Wol on Saturday, June 15 2013 @ 06:11 AM EDT
What you miss is that the product *itself* (and this I think is where confusion
arises, because it's probably not actually stated anywhere) should never, IN AND
OF ITSELF, be patented.

The patent is actually on the process used to make it - if that's the only way
you can make it then the product is effectively patented.

Bear in mind that patents are supposed to advance the art by encouraging people
to find work-arounds. So patenting brass itself as "a mixture of tin and
copper" is right out. Saying you mix so much tin and so much copper and do
X Y Z is fine. If you can make your process variable, so much the better!

But one only has to look at steel as an example of where the process is far more
important than the composition. All forms of industrial iron are a mix of carbon
and iron. The brittleness and strength depends very heavily not only on how much
carbon there is, but how well it is mixed. It's the WAY that you make it that
matters so much.

Think of it this way. You can't patent USING something. The patent system is
supposed to encourage alternative means of production, so it's not meant to
protect the actual item itself. It's meant to encourage the publication of trade
secrets, and if you're selling an item that's not a trade secret! So the only
thing left is it's meant to protect what you DO!

So a patent should only ever cover the means of production. If that closes off
all avenues for making your particular product, that's a side-effect. A useful
and intended side-effect, but not the aim.

Cheers,
Wol

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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