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Technically (in the US) it's only possible to patent plants and I think legally yeasts are considered plants. This is "to promote progress in the science and u
by throwawaymaths 3y ago
Technically (in the US) it's only possible to patent plants and I think legally yeasts are considered plants.
This is "to promote progress in the science and useful art of agronomy".
Not defending it, just stating what the law is.
- whatshisface 3y agoI initially reacted to it negatively, but on thinking about it I realize that glowing plants are about as natural as polyethylene factories, so I get the logic behind the patentability, and can even see some benefits. Hopefully the patent will reduce the total number of these abominations grown.
- throwawaymaths 3y agoWell where on that spectrum does honeycrisp apple or Maui gold pineapple belong?
- whatshisface 3y agoSomewhere in the middle. Honeycrisp apples are a combination of naturally occurring genes, but they are propagated clonally and in fact cannot reproduce true to themselves. They'd never have arisen without careful cultivation, and (this part is important) another group crossing the same original cultivars as the developers of the honeycrisp used wouldn't get the same apple. So it's a combination that is unique to its inventors, rather than a patent on something anybody could do - and nobody will infringe by accident. An example of a bad patent would be a patent on a process anybody trying to solve the problem would come up with - that's a needless restraint on trade - and an example of a truly horrible patent would be one on a human gene. Those existed until 2013, when the supreme court finally ruled against them.
- throwawaymaths 3y agoSeems arbitrary and liable to abuse due to the patent office gonna call it obvious to deny you the patent because the officer's friend has a similar patent.
- whatshisface 3y agoThe rule against a trivial invention already exists, but as you suggest, interpretation creates a huge amount of criticism for the patent system.
- mnw21cam 3y agoWhat you have just said about the Honeycrisp apple is true about all apples. That's how apple varieties have been created since the dawn of time. There's nothing special about Honeycrisp - they basically tried planting loads of seeds after crossing various trees with each other, did a massive taste testing and picked the resulting tree that won the lottery. Then that single tree was propagated by cuttings to make every single Honeycrisp apple tree in existence. But that's how all apple varieties are made.
- throwawaymaths 3y agoWasn't honeycrisp made with irradiated soil?
- mnw21cam 3y agoThat's not mentioned in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeycrisp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeycrisp or anywhere else I can find.
- shellfishgene 3y agoYou could also argue that as honeycrisp were created by randomly crossing other varieties, and then picking the one appple with the most desireable qualities out of hundreds, this is not really patent-worthy as nothing was designed by the breeder. The glowing petunias on the other hand were a proper invention, inserting a working, novel biochemical pathway into a plant is quite hard.
- sampo 3y ago> Honeycrisp apples are a combination of naturally occurring genes, but they are propagated clonally and in fact cannot reproduce true to themselves. All apple cultivars are like that. https://theconversation.com/how-a-few-good-apples-spawned-todays-top-varieties-and-why-breeders-must-branch-out-164538 https://theconversation.com/how-a-few-good-apples-spawned-to...
- nottorp 3y agoOrder one glowing petunia. Plant a cutting in the neighbor's yard. Neighbor goes to jail. Profit!