Comments on: Can you patent DNA?

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 19:49:56 +0000

I think IBM may hold the patent for having a “concept” implemented as “software.”

By: Chris Winter

Chris Winter — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 18:40:29 +0000

RickD and Doug Alder are right. Consider the precedent: If natural DNA is deemed patentable, why not other natural molecules? How low can we go? RNA? Peptides? Insulin? Gamma globulin? Amino acids? Table salt? (Yeah, the patent on NaCl — if permitted — would be a lucrative one. Of course, that substance was discovered too long ago; I mention it only for purposes of illustration.) It all reminds me of an episode from the dawn of the personal computer era, when somebody sued spreadsheet software vendors (Lotus Development, Borland, etc.) on the basis (IIRC) of owning the patent on data organized in rows and columns. Truly insane. (There was a case in which Lotus sued Borland. The SCOTUS ruled on that in 1996. It's not the case I'm thinking of; that took place during the 1980s.) Ref: The Software Patent Crisis (1990)

By: RickD

RickD — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:51:31 +0000

The “bifurcation” between discovery and invention is not arbitrary, but it does represent the intended boundary between what is patentable and what isn’t.

The mistake bks is making is thinking that patents are about the structure of what is being patented. It isn’t. Patents are intended to protect inventions, not discoveries. Patents represent a protection of the process.

The fact that researchers can design molecules that mimic naturally occurring molecules is hardly an intellectual puzzle here.

By: bks

bks — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 04:10:52 +0000

Not so fast. SCOTUS has still left almost the same mess as before. The bifurcation between Natural and Artificial is very arbitrary. The difference between DNA and cDNA is not much of a difference.

–bks

By: Doug Alder

Doug Alder — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 20:43:54 +0000

At last some sanity from the SCOTUS. This is indeed good news.