6 ms·

I hate the fact that breakthroughs like this are patentable. People need to follow Alexander Flemings lead: The pharmacist Sir Alexander Fleming is revered

by junto 11y ago

I hate the fact that breakthroughs like this are patentable. People need to follow Alexander Flemings lead: The pharmacist Sir Alexander Fleming is revered not just because of his discovery of penicillin – the antibiotic that has saved millions of lives – but also due to his efforts to ensure that it was freely available to as much of the world’s population as possible. Fleming could have become a hugely wealthy man if he had decided to control and license the substance, but he understood that penicillin’s potential to overcome diseases such as syphilis, gangrene and tuberculosis meant it had to be released into the world to serve the greater good. On the eve of World War II, he transferred the patents to the US and UK governments, which were able to mass-produce penicillin in time to treat many of the wounded in that war. It has saved many millions of lives since. http://www.mobileworldlive.com/blog/penicillin-the-antidote-to-patent-wars/ http://www.mobileworldlive.com/blog/penicillin-the-antidote-...

chaostheory 11y ago
Jonah Salk, the guy who developed the polio vaccine "When asked who owned the patent to it, Salk said, 'There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?'"
- dalke 11y ago
  From what I've heard, he wouldn't have been the one to decide. That would have been his employer, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. And its lawyers had decided that the vaccine wouldn't be patentable under the rules of that time.
  - chaostheory 11y ago
    Even if his employer did want to patent his work, considering Salk's huge fame at the time (the guy's a modern dragon slayer), it wouldn't have taken much to convince his employer otherwise. A few interviews here and there and the public outcry would be huge.
    - dalke 11y ago
      It would surely depend on the patent license, no? As http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/history_of_innovation/2014/04/the_real_reasons_jonas_salk_didn_t_patent_the_polio_vaccine.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/history_of_innovati... points out: > No one knows why the lawyers considered a patent application, but it seems likely that they would only have used it to prevent companies from making unlicensed, low-quality versions of the vaccine. There is no indication that the foundation intended to profit from a patent on the polio vaccine. Why would the public be in an uproar about using patent protections to keep low-quality vaccines out of the market, while otherwise making the license available at no cost?
      - chaostheory 11y ago
        > Why would the public be in an uproar about using patent protections to keep low-quality vaccines out of the market For one thing you don't need patent protections to keep 'low quality' vaccines out of the market. To my knowledge, that's what government regulatory bodies like the FDA are for. > while otherwise making the license available at no cost? Even if this was the case, I'm sure that Salk knew that if it was patented, that this would be only temporary (with no guarantees on reasonable pricing in the future); and it would be an unnecessary and immediate roadblock to helping people.
        dalke 11y ago
        That's what the FDA does now, yes. However, the polio vaccine was introduced when the FDA had weaker powers. It wasn't until after the Thalidomide tragedy and the 1962 Kefauver-Harris Amendment where pharmaceutical companies also needed to demonstrate effectiveness. Before then, companies only needed to demonstrate safety. As it was, the Cutter polio vaccine incident shows that making the vaccine was not easy. > I'm sure that Salk knew ... How are you sure? Is this discussed in his biography or autobiography? I see the topic is covered in Jane S. Smith's "Patent the Sun", but I haven't read it. Other vaccines (or vaccine preparations) at the time were patented. Was your described behavior typical for them?
daughart 11y ago
It will take millions of dollars of research to turn this basic bioengineering technique into an approved (safe and effective) human therapy. How do you motivate investors to fund this research without the safety net of a patent to protect that investment from free-loaders?
- jedberg 11y ago
  The way it was done before patents -- government funded research institutions whose only motivation was to provide scientific breakthroughs so they could continue to receive government funding.
  - daughart 11y ago
    There's a huge gap between the scientific breakthrough and the work needed to create a safe and effective therapy. It's not academically interesting, and academic scientists won't do it. It's optimization, not discovery. And what about the cost of the clinical trial, which could be $500m? Government funded research institutions will continue to provide BREAKTHROUGHS to receive funding.
    - jedberg 11y ago
      > And what about the cost of the clinical trial, which could be $500m? That's an interesting one, because that cost is entirely caused by the government. The government could for example fund clinical trials, since they're the ones who are interested in it's results (as is by extension the public). As for the rest, if the science were freely available without a patent from the scientists, companies could still spend money making it a therapy and making a profit by doing it better and more efficiently than their competitors, and they could still get a patent on their work. We're talking about making the science patent free, not the product.
      - biehl 11y ago
        Exactly. An evaluation of the efficiency of "buying" clinical trials with patents would be very interesting.
philsnow 11y ago
If CRISPR gets/stays patented, the part of the world that respects patent law is going to get left out of whatever innovations it yields. Or maybe not completely left behind, but the groups that will be able to license it will number few. I generally agree that discoveries like this should go in the public domain as quickly as possible. The pissing contest about "who invented what, when" is fine and good, to a point; nobody cares if "Cancer Immunity 1.0" drug has a tagline "brought to you by Lander's Finest". To the extent that success and notoriety determine careers, and so we should "get it right" so that the "right" people get credit... I think most researchers will persevere and continue to do science (for the benefit of humanity or for personal glory, or whatever) even if they get shafted for credit. But the technology itself.. get it into everybody's hands and let the thousand flowers bloom already.
- gohrt 11y ago
  > let the thousand flowers bloom This is a problematic phrase: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign
kauffj 11y ago
I think the notion that one can own facts will one day be viewed as archaic as the notion that one can own people.
- euyyn 11y ago
  Can you own a secret, though? Or is it OK for a government to force you reveal it publicly? If people have a right to own secrets, and if NDAs can be legally enforced, then a market of (the knowledge of) facts can naturally emerge that's strictly worse than the patent system.
- daughart 11y ago
  They don't own any facts. They own the ability to exclude others from selling, as well as importing/exporting, certain materials.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    Which is going to break down quickly when anyone can replicate those materials at little cost on their workbench.
    - daughart 11y ago
      They do a pretty good job regulating drug imports that violate IP, and I suspect they will here as well. The materials in question will be complex human therapeutic compositions, not research materials. I strongly doubt people will be creating therapeutic CRISPR compositions at the workbench (which will also include sophisticated delivery and targeting molecular products).
onetwotree 11y ago
Also Banting, the discoverer of insulin (or at least its potential to treat diabetes).
epistasis 11y ago
The inventions of scientists in academia, like employees in the private sector, are owned by their employers. Universities and research institutes typically have a policy to profit from these inventions via patents in order to fund more research. The people that need to change this are at the administrative level: laws via congress, and then chancellors of universities.
hmahncke 11y ago
There's a big difference between exclusive licensing and non-exclusive licensing. New drugs (like penicillin) tend to be exclusively licensed because of the costs involved in regulatory approval, and that can slow down technology diffusion - the wrong licensee can sink the technology. But enabling technologies (like CRSPR) get licensed non-exclusively, particularly when the patent holder is an academic institution. If the patents around CRSPR are licensed non-exclusively, at reasonably prices, and with appropriate treatment for academic researchers, these patents aren't going to slow science down. A good example is the original polymerase chain reaction patents, which were held by Cetus. Despite lots of legal arguments, PCR was always widely available. Here's a nice analysis of the PCR patent situation and its effects on technology diffusion: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1523369/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1523369/
- Malarkey73 11y ago
  There is a big difference between PCR and CRISPR though. Whilst PCR is effectively a reading technology, CRISPR is a writing technology. For many medical technologies then PCR is a standalone diagnostic tool (it is HUGE in mol. biol., pathology, biotech). However you can quite easily see CRISPR being a core tech within revolutionary deliverable medical treatments. As Eisen points out its kind of odd that the group who rush to do the obvious human implementation should then get a share of all this potential... Not really a novel invention by that point in my opinion.
  - hmahncke 11y ago
    Yes, exclusively licensing CRISPR on an indication-by-indication basis as a therapeutic itself (as someone below has suggested has already happened by Broad) would be worrisome.
kbenzle 11y ago
I think that means you hate breakthroughs.

by junto 11y ago

chaostheory 11y ago

Jonah Salk, the guy who developed the polio vaccine "When asked who owned the patent to it, Salk said, 'There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?'"

dalke 11y ago
From what I've heard, he wouldn't have been the one to decide. That would have been his employer, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. And its lawyers had decided that the vaccine wouldn't be patentable under the rules of that time.
- chaostheory 11y ago
  Even if his employer did want to patent his work, considering Salk's huge fame at the time (the guy's a modern dragon slayer), it wouldn't have taken much to convince his employer otherwise. A few interviews here and there and the public outcry would be huge.
  - dalke 11y ago
    It would surely depend on the patent license, no? As http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/history_of_innovation/2014/04/the_real_reasons_jonas_salk_didn_t_patent_the_polio_vaccine.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/history_of_innovati... points out: > No one knows why the lawyers considered a patent application, but it seems likely that they would only have used it to prevent companies from making unlicensed, low-quality versions of the vaccine. There is no indication that the foundation intended to profit from a patent on the polio vaccine. Why would the public be in an uproar about using patent protections to keep low-quality vaccines out of the market, while otherwise making the license available at no cost?
    - chaostheory 11y ago
      > Why would the public be in an uproar about using patent protections to keep low-quality vaccines out of the market For one thing you don't need patent protections to keep 'low quality' vaccines out of the market. To my knowledge, that's what government regulatory bodies like the FDA are for. > while otherwise making the license available at no cost? Even if this was the case, I'm sure that Salk knew that if it was patented, that this would be only temporary (with no guarantees on reasonable pricing in the future); and it would be an unnecessary and immediate roadblock to helping people.
      - dalke 11y ago
        That's what the FDA does now, yes. However, the polio vaccine was introduced when the FDA had weaker powers. It wasn't until after the Thalidomide tragedy and the 1962 Kefauver-Harris Amendment where pharmaceutical companies also needed to demonstrate effectiveness. Before then, companies only needed to demonstrate safety. As it was, the Cutter polio vaccine incident shows that making the vaccine was not easy. > I'm sure that Salk knew ... How are you sure? Is this discussed in his biography or autobiography? I see the topic is covered in Jane S. Smith's "Patent the Sun", but I haven't read it. Other vaccines (or vaccine preparations) at the time were patented. Was your described behavior typical for them?

daughart 11y ago

It will take millions of dollars of research to turn this basic bioengineering technique into an approved (safe and effective) human therapy. How do you motivate investors to fund this research without the safety net of a patent to protect that investment from free-loaders?

jedberg 11y ago
The way it was done before patents -- government funded research institutions whose only motivation was to provide scientific breakthroughs so they could continue to receive government funding.
- daughart 11y ago
  There's a huge gap between the scientific breakthrough and the work needed to create a safe and effective therapy. It's not academically interesting, and academic scientists won't do it. It's optimization, not discovery. And what about the cost of the clinical trial, which could be $500m? Government funded research institutions will continue to provide BREAKTHROUGHS to receive funding.
  - jedberg 11y ago
    > And what about the cost of the clinical trial, which could be $500m? That's an interesting one, because that cost is entirely caused by the government. The government could for example fund clinical trials, since they're the ones who are interested in it's results (as is by extension the public). As for the rest, if the science were freely available without a patent from the scientists, companies could still spend money making it a therapy and making a profit by doing it better and more efficiently than their competitors, and they could still get a patent on their work. We're talking about making the science patent free, not the product.
    - biehl 11y ago
      Exactly. An evaluation of the efficiency of "buying" clinical trials with patents would be very interesting.

philsnow 11y ago

If CRISPR gets/stays patented, the part of the world that respects patent law is going to get left out of whatever innovations it yields. Or maybe not completely left behind, but the groups that will be able to license it will number few. I generally agree that discoveries like this should go in the public domain as quickly as possible. The pissing contest about "who invented what, when" is fine and good, to a point; nobody cares if "Cancer Immunity 1.0" drug has a tagline "brought to you by Lander's Finest". To the extent that success and notoriety determine careers, and so we should "get it right" so that the "right" people get credit... I think most researchers will persevere and continue to do science (for the benefit of humanity or for personal glory, or whatever) even if they get shafted for credit. But the technology itself.. get it into everybody's hands and let the thousand flowers bloom already.

gohrt 11y ago
> let the thousand flowers bloom This is a problematic phrase: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign

kauffj 11y ago

I think the notion that one can own facts will one day be viewed as archaic as the notion that one can own people.

euyyn 11y ago
Can you own a secret, though? Or is it OK for a government to force you reveal it publicly? If people have a right to own secrets, and if NDAs can be legally enforced, then a market of (the knowledge of) facts can naturally emerge that's strictly worse than the patent system.
daughart 11y ago
They don't own any facts. They own the ability to exclude others from selling, as well as importing/exporting, certain materials.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Which is going to break down quickly when anyone can replicate those materials at little cost on their workbench.
  - daughart 11y ago
    They do a pretty good job regulating drug imports that violate IP, and I suspect they will here as well. The materials in question will be complex human therapeutic compositions, not research materials. I strongly doubt people will be creating therapeutic CRISPR compositions at the workbench (which will also include sophisticated delivery and targeting molecular products).

onetwotree 11y ago

Also Banting, the discoverer of insulin (or at least its potential to treat diabetes).

epistasis 11y ago

The inventions of scientists in academia, like employees in the private sector, are owned by their employers. Universities and research institutes typically have a policy to profit from these inventions via patents in order to fund more research. The people that need to change this are at the administrative level: laws via congress, and then chancellors of universities.

hmahncke 11y ago

There's a big difference between exclusive licensing and non-exclusive licensing. New drugs (like penicillin) tend to be exclusively licensed because of the costs involved in regulatory approval, and that can slow down technology diffusion - the wrong licensee can sink the technology. But enabling technologies (like CRSPR) get licensed non-exclusively, particularly when the patent holder is an academic institution. If the patents around CRSPR are licensed non-exclusively, at reasonably prices, and with appropriate treatment for academic researchers, these patents aren't going to slow science down. A good example is the original polymerase chain reaction patents, which were held by Cetus. Despite lots of legal arguments, PCR was always widely available. Here's a nice analysis of the PCR patent situation and its effects on technology diffusion: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1523369/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1523369/

Malarkey73 11y ago
There is a big difference between PCR and CRISPR though. Whilst PCR is effectively a reading technology, CRISPR is a writing technology. For many medical technologies then PCR is a standalone diagnostic tool (it is HUGE in mol. biol., pathology, biotech). However you can quite easily see CRISPR being a core tech within revolutionary deliverable medical treatments. As Eisen points out its kind of odd that the group who rush to do the obvious human implementation should then get a share of all this potential... Not really a novel invention by that point in my opinion.
- hmahncke 11y ago
  Yes, exclusively licensing CRISPR on an indication-by-indication basis as a therapeutic itself (as someone below has suggested has already happened by Broad) would be worrisome.

kbenzle 11y ago

I think that means you hate breakthroughs.