Simply ridiculous. Patent law needs to be over-hauled. Just ask RIM.
This Essay Breaks the Law - New York Times:
Elevated homocysteine is linked to B-12 deficiency, so doctors should test homocysteine levels to see whether the patient needs vitamins.ACTUALLY, I can't make that last statement. A corporation has patented that fact, and demands a royalty for its use. Anyone who makes the fact public and encourages doctors to test for the condition and treat it can be sued for royalty fees. Any doctor who reads a patient's test results and even thinks of vitamin deficiency infringes the patent. A federal circuit court held that mere thinking violates the patent.
All this may sound absurd, but it is the heart of a case that will be argued before the Supreme Court on Tuesday. In 1986 researchers filed a patent application for a method of testing the levels of homocysteine, an amino acid, in the blood. They went one step further and asked for a patent on the basic biological relationship between homocysteine and vitamin deficiency. A patent was granted that covered both the test and the scientific fact. Eventually, a company called Metabolite took over the license for the patent.
Although Metabolite does not have a monopoly on test methods — other companies make homocysteine tests, too — they assert licensing rights on the correlation of elevated homocysteine with vitamin deficiency. A company called LabCorp used a different test but published an article mentioning the patented fact. Metabolite sued on a number of grounds, and has won in court so far. But what the Supreme Court will focus on is the nature of the claimed correlation. On the one hand, courts have repeatedly held that basic bodily processes and “products of nature” are not patentable. That's why no one owns gravity, or the speed of light. But at the same time, courts have granted so-called correlation patents for many years. Powerful forces are arrayed on both sides of the issue.
In addition, there is the rather bizarre question of whether simply thinking about a patented fact infringes the patent. The idea smacks of thought control, to say nothing of unenforceability. It seems like something out of a novel by Philip K. Dick — or Kafka. But it highlights the uncomfortable truth that the Patent Office and the courts have in recent decades ruled themselves into a corner from which they must somehow extricate themselves.
Just think of all the things I could have patented over the years. The mind boggles. I made a screensaver program back when I was a physics undergrad - there were no such things at the time. How about political commentary? What if someone of the formerly shrill anti-Bush crowd (see Krugman's article) had patented criticism of the Iraq boondoggle, and now sued Little Roy Andy Sullivan? Sweet.
Technorati Tags: Business, Patent_Law
Unfortunately for the public, the Metabolite case is only one example of a much broader patent problem in this country. We grant patents at a level of abstraction that is unwise, and it's gotten us into trouble in the past. Some years back, doctors were allowed to patent surgical procedures and sue other doctors who used their methods without paying a fee. A blizzard of lawsuits followed. This unhealthy circumstance was halted in 1996 by the American Medical Association and Congress, which decided that doctors couldn't sue other doctors for using patented surgical procedures. But the beat goes on.Companies have patented their method of hiring, and real estate agents have patented the way they sell houses. Lawyers now advise athletes to patent their sports moves, and screenwriters to patent their movie plots. (My screenplay for “Jurassic Park” was cited as a good candidate.)
Where does all this lead? It means that if a real estate agent lists a house for sale, he can be sued because an existing patent for selling houses includes item No. 7, “List the house.” It means that Kobe Bryant may serve as an inspiration but not a model, because nobody can imitate him without fines. It means nobody can write a dinosaur story because my patent includes 257 items covering all aspects of behavior, like item No. 13, “Dinosaurs attack humans and other dinosaurs.”
Sometimes you have to wonder about the mentality of people who think you can own a thought or a short collection of words - and lets not even start on gene codes. I do think the internet is going to make or break this world view that ideas are property and can be locked down and that the proprietary vs open source and DRM debates are just the beginning of that. It could go either way but I know which side I am rooting for.
Not to mention the mentality of lawyers and courts who encourage such crazy behavior. I'm with you - hope opensource makes a dent in the future. Not sure exactly how everyone gets paid in an opersource world, but worry about that later. Only problem is that the odds are heavily in favor of the copyright holders (Disney, Sony, et al).
There seem to be two models emerging: one is the Mozilla root, a non profit foundation that employs a few key staff. The other is much more economically sustainable and seems to be what IBM and possibly Google are aiming at - free software but paid for support (although Google also uses advertising). I think this second one is probably the better model as it allows for large scale economic activity and the economies of scale and so on whilst creating much freer information and so faster innovation. I believe that the companies that embrace this quicker will get a head start on those tying to lock the internet down with DRM and that their business model will be more effective. What is the point of paying for expensive software infrequently updated if everyone else is running something else they got for free that is updated constantly? Linux systems are running on up to 35% of all computers already, several EU countries are switching their government networks over to local linux versions. This could be the shift of business model that the internet was supposed to bring. As usual the change is nothing like that predicted and might even be a good one. Fingers crossed.
Note, make that 25% of computers! Damn the typo!