wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Comments

• [1] James from Brooklyn October 22, 2009 - 01:11PM

  Can you describe how the patent works? Do you just get a right to the gene for whatever purpose, or do you patent the gene for a certain use or therapy?

  Patenting the use seems sane; patenting the gene seems nuts.

  
  
• [2] anonyme October 22, 2009 - 01:12PM

  Hey! Dannon yogurt makes activia out of patented bacteria! How did that happen!

  
  
• [3] anonyme October 22, 2009 - 01:13PM

  yes just like synthetic hormones taht wound up beign hrrible for women (HRT)

  
  
• [4] Richard from Astoria, Queens October 22, 2009 - 01:16PM

  Would Dr. Koepsell care to comment on The Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007? The act, signed into law last year by George Bush calls for dna collection and storage from all babies born in the United States. Why is this being done?

  
  
• [5] Richard from Astoria, Queens October 22, 2009 - 01:18PM

  In the documentary The Future of Food, it's claimed that companies like Monsanto have been patenting seed DNA for plants - like corn, beans, bananas, etc - which have not been altered in any way.

  
  
• [6] James from Brooklyn October 22, 2009 - 01:22PM

  Patent your own random genes! It's like buying a URL before someone needs it. The first time someone licenses some random gene that turns out to be useful for a billion or so, those pharmas will get the policy changed in favor of open source lickety split.

  
  
• [7] Steve from Brooklyn October 22, 2009 - 01:25PM

  I'm a phd student in Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins and I've disagreed with this kind of patenting on moral grounds for some time. Could the guest discuss patenting tissue for cell lines as well? Researchers can take cancer cells from a dying patient, and then sell those cells (with some modifications) without any of the profits going to the cancer patient. That has never seemed right to me.

  
  
• [8] Jeff Johnson from Manhattan October 22, 2009 - 01:27PM

  I'm not sure I get this. As I understand patents, they only confer on the patent holder a right to prevent others from using, making, selling and importing a patented invention. As your guest has stated, this doesn't apply to the use of genes inside the body of a living person, and I believe there's a pretty well established exception for research, so what are we trying to protect against by excluding genes from patentability? Is it just a matter of expanding (or clarifying) the scope of the research exemption? Or is your guest advocating that the discoverer of a new gene can't develop a test for identifying that gene and then sell it without being entitled to compensation of others do the same thing? If so, what motivates the discoverer to disclose the gene in the first place? Wouldn't this just encourage discoverers to maintain gene structures as a trade secret?

  
  
• [9] Karl Gallmeyer from New Hartford, CT October 22, 2009 - 01:28PM

  A process that extracts a mineral from the soil could enjoy the benefit of patent protection but the mineral itself is not patentable. How has gene identification come to be fundamentally different than this?

  
  
• [10] Ben S from NYC October 22, 2009 - 01:33PM

  Isn't your guest fudging the truth a little? The gene patents cover genes at _purity_ levels not found in nature, so technically they don't cover the genes found in our bodies.

  
  
• [11] Betty Anne from UES October 22, 2009 - 01:42PM

  How does this work when it's done with federal monies? How is done abroad?

  
  
• [12] Betty Anne from UES October 22, 2009 - 01:43PM

  Does this process impede or further science? Isn't the point of science to keep moving forward and these extract processes seem to break down logical methodology.

  
  
• [13] anonyme October 22, 2009 - 01:45PM

  ask him about how monsanto uses patents on seeds?

  
  
• [14] JMT from Manhattan October 22, 2009 - 01:49PM

  As a patent attorney, I feel compelled to point out that wild type genes, i.e., as they are found in nature are NOT patentable. The Supreme Court decided this question in seminal case of Diamond vs. Chakabarty. Only man-made genes are patentable. Methods of using wild type genes, for example in a diagnostic test, are patentable. In the U.S., any patented gene that is used for purely experimental purposes, and not for commercial profit, is exempt from infringement.

  
  
• [15] JMT from Manhattan October 22, 2009 - 01:51PM

  Society pays a price when governments ban patents on entire classes of inventions, such as genes, as your guest is suggesting. People do not invest money in investing money in commercializing science. There may be more philosophical tinkering with genetic material, but less investment in actual products that save lives.

  
  
• [16] CJ from NY October 22, 2009 - 01:51PM

  It should be banned. There is a conflict of interest. The same people who are developing treatments own the patents on the genes themselves. They have a vested interest in perpetuating disorder.

  
  
• [17] JMT from Manhattan October 22, 2009 - 01:52PM

  The solution to the negative externalities of gene patenting is not to mess with patent law by banning gene patents. The solution is universal healthcare so that all can benefit from innovation in biotechnology. This also addresses the ethical problems raised by your guest.

  
  
• [18] David Koepsell from Delft, NL October 22, 2009 - 03:18PM

  As for the "isolation and purification" argument, mentioned by a couple of commentators above, "wild type" genes get "purified" by the same process that the human body uses "purifies" these genes when it transcribes the information into proteins (mRNA skips the introns, leaving out what patent attorneys call "impurities" in a feat of rhetorical gymnastics). This is not new, not inventive, and not worthy of patenting. Patent lawyers like to describe this process as though it's some sort of technical achievement, but it is a smoke screen meant to confuse those who don't understand how cDNA is created -- in a process that mimics that which nature does all the time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intron

  
  
• [19] PL Hayes from Aberystwyth October 22, 2009 - 04:09PM

  “Society pays a price when governments ban patents on entire classes of inventions” --JMT, #15

  Society pays a price when governments /allow/ patents on entire classes of invention. The assumptions - myths, even - that patents always do “promote progress...” (let alone are necessary to innovation) and have an overall positive effect on economic and social welfare are hopelessly facile and flawed.

  http://researchoninnovation.org

  http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm